The joys of printing

I mentioned the other day that I bought a 3d printer, well lockdown finally gave me that kick to use it properly and start learning how to use Blender to make my own models as everything I could find didn't quite fit the aesthetics I wanted. A few years back when I was on a resin casting kick, I tried sculpting/casting an extra wall to go with the GW Garden of Morr set as I loved the style... but hated all the skulls on it all. That didn't go so well as the plaster started to disinegrate in the wet rubber.

Roll forward a few years and I've not only managed to create some straight walls that fit nicely, but I've managed to create a full set of walls for the table and I'm over the moon with how well they have come out.  The set also includes a small gateway, like the Secret Garden and a collapsed section... but also includes a lychgate. It is for a cemetary after all.

Given that these are my first ever 3d models, I was a little wary of doing anything with them, but I was finally convinced the other day to let others have them as well. It's not like I've got enough of a following to try and sell them yet... so they are now available for free on https://www.myminifactory.com/users/MrMagpieCreates.

Future models will also be added there too. Enjoy! and if you print them, please let me know, I'd love to see them in use!

Patreon recommendations

Last Christmas I bought myself an Elegoo Mars resin 3d printer. One thing that has been great is all the interesting Patreons and kickstarters that are starting to appear now the technology is well within homebudget range. This is certainly going to impact the way the hobby evolves over the coming years.

At present most things seem to be around fantasy or sci-fi figures and terrain, but I would not be surprised to see historicals and pulp start to make an appearance soon and start challenging some of the more established companies. Having to buy one set of files for not very much at all... and then be able to print out a many of them as you need... *mind blown*. May are starting to provide pre-supported models too, which takes all the work out of it... just load up the slicer with the bits you want, hit save and print. No more faffing with carefully placing struts on it all.

Some of my favourite Patreon creators at the moment are:

Cult Miniatures. These guys are creating very modular kits that allow real flexibility in positioning and customisation. Below you cna see all the options for *one* of the figures in this month's set. Each month they release one standard size infantry unit, one larger unit, at least one character and something else. Last month was egyptian undead (or Khemri to those of you from WFB), which came with a load ot terrain elements. The previous month was Beastmen, so in addition to the normal two units we got a unit of minotaurs. All for $12 a month... Below you can see the modularity of this month's fungus queen. I have 7TV ideas for her

 

Lost Kingdom Miniatures are hard at work creating some stunning alternatives to WFB classics. Their primary focus so far has been Chaos Dwarves and Lizardmen, with the occasional diversion into heroes for other races... so who knows what will be coming in the future. They recently did a highly successful kickstarter for terrain for these two races with some very characterful figures. Sadly I didn't back this one as I don't need any of the terrain and to get the two or three interesting exclusive figures you had to go all in. This one is useful for filling in some slots in the Warhammer Quest lineup. This month is some skink and kroxigor alternatives that are far far nicer than the originals... not bad for $10

The last one for today is Artisan Guild. In terms of modularity, these guys are slightly less modular than Cult miniatures, but far more flexible than Lost Kingdoms. AG tend to just make the hands separate and create batches with lots of different weapon combinations. They even supply open and closed hands and weapons with no hands... so 5 minutes in Blender means you can start mixing and matching weapons or accessories from other sets very easily. Fancy an elf with black powder weapons? Fine. Take the blunderbus form the Dwarf set and put it into someone else's hands. Some races even share the same hands so it is even easier. The models are a bit chunkier than other ranges though, but that's ok too. Just scale the model down by 10% and it'll now fit with most other ranges. Again, this one is only $10 a month.

You're a little tall for a dwarf...

This week some of the new Oathbreaker dwarves arrived to have a play with. Really liking these new figures, especially the plastic kit. Starting left to right, we have the freebie dwarf that comes with the early boxes of plastics. Next we have the dwarf king, the mage/crow master and finally one of the plastic figures.

Out of this lot, the mage is my favourite and will be able to do double duty as a sage or a crow master for Frostgrave

I was planning on using these alongside my Saga Vikings as a force for Forgotten Realms, but was just a little surprised to see how tiny the Gripping Beast plastics are compared to these dwarves...

The dwarf does have the integrated base still attached, which gives him a little boost in height, but the Saga plastics look like they may have to be used as dwarf younglings who have yet to grow a beard... they certainly can't be used as humans. Thankfully the dwarf scales really nicely next to the Frostgrave plastics and will allow for a lot of conversions

And now for something completely different

In a change to the current schedule, for the first time in what feels like ages... I had a coupe of days off work this week and took the opportunity to make a start on some new terrain. Now I have a table, I needed some buildings to go on it! This is the second 4Ground building that I've put together. This one is much much better than the bombed ww2 building. The detailing and fits seem much better.

The forge and chimney consists of about 35 pieces alone! The building is going to be set into some hex shaped bases so that it will slot nicely into my table when it starts going together. While the kit is very pretty, it feels too clean and needs some of the roof tidying up, so I've started hacking this thing up already. The sharp corners to the brickwork on the forge are being roughed up  a bit to make it look less neat. I need to find some time at the weekend to practice with the foam cutter to make the tiles. Once I have the base, the painting can start on the forge...

Some of the Oathsworn dwarves turned up today as well. These are quite a nice kit with plenty of options to make up various troop types from Frostgrave as well. Not quite as many little optional bits as the others, but this is intended to be ranks of infantry rather than skirmish based. The parts will scale well though, so making them more personalised will be easy enough with leftover bits. I grabbed a coupe of the metal figures too, which are excellent as a Heritor, Mage or Crow master. Looking forward to fiddling with these kits.

Sigmar's heroes

Not quite as gritty as Kelly's Heroes, but pretty close.

In an attempt to get a little bit further with the Warhammer Quest characters I took a crack at the Knight Azyros/Venator kit that came in the first Character expansion box as I'd really enjoyed painting up the Knight Questor. This kit comes with parts to make one of two characters... so with the spare parts in hand and one of the AoS monopose Prosecutors I managed to get both characters out of the one kit

After these two were done, I had to finish off the sprue by building two of the starter set Liberators as well, for no real reason. Unfortunately I've run out of clear bases for these guys, so I need to order some more before I go any further with these

Oh the Horror(s)!

In a weird twist on the usual one or two posts and then radio silence for months... I've actually got another update or two for you already lined up!

Rounding off the Horrors part of the Silver tower box set is the remaining Pink and four Blues.

The right hand one of these Pink Horrors you saw in the last update, but the left had one features a minor adjustment to his hand and tentacles to try and vary it slightly. I suspect some of the tweaks are too small to notice, even side by side... so I'm not entirely sure why I bothered! Still. Two Pinks now done. Like the last one, this was a series of pinky purple washes over a white undercoat with some green and purple inks over the top to give it some variation in tones and show the constantly evolving nature of the beast

The Blues were done in the same manner, but using a bright blue over the white instead. I still used purple washes in the shade and on some of the features to tie them into the Pink Horrors

I'm not 100% convinced that the yellow highlights from the flames work, but still. They are weird, magical creatures... so who knows how they react

Questing ever onwards

This year has seen a lot of changes going on at GW HQ. Last year I'd pretty much decided not to buy from them again. This year they just keep on delivering great boxed games that harken back to the pieces of the universe that interested me most. First we had the Genestealer Cult making a comeback in Deathwatch:Overkill and now a version of Warhammer Quest is coming out. Granted, the new WQ is a far cry from the original, but it is a start and can be expanded upon easily enough with campaign books/boxes and digital content to add in campaign elements beyond the Silver Tower.

 Ever since I lost access to my original version of WQ I've been looking for a good alternative. Dungeon Saga was supposed to be that replacement, but for me it failed to deliver on a lot of what I was looking for. Sadly I already know that this is missing the same bits DS failed to live up to with the character advancement and more rpg-lite elements, but the random dungeon elements do (from the previews) seem to be a lot more cohesive and easier to build upon. Even if it turns out it isn't "the thing" it is another source to crib from if I ever get back to writing my own.

On the plus side, it has some wonderful models that look like they will be fun to paint. I've seen people complaining about the "cartoony" look of the new models though. Did they ever look at the old WQ figures?! I know which ones I prefer:

I do have to admit that I was one of those people that never gave Age of Sigmar a chance and wrote it off based on a few photos and a pang of loss at the universe that I'd grown up with, even though hadn't gamed in for years!. Shame on me. Some conversations with friends who hate started AoS and the release of Silver Tower has ignited an interest in what is actually happening in this new world. I'll probably have a read through some of the books over the coming months to see how I can twist Silver Tower into other settings.

More monsters

This entry for the Analogue Challenge is a mixed bag of models. Some for Dungeon Saga/Frostgrave and some for Shadows of Brimstone.

First up we have the banshee from DS, which leaves one of the core set villains left to paint and 6 armoured undead. The banshee is quite a nice sculpt, with the exception of blobby hands and will see a lot of use in various games.

As a change, I decided to try some of the Dungeon Saga demons. These guys are the same size as the undead trolls and act as their equivalent in the demonic campaign. Again, very nice models to paint, though some of the seams are tricky to clean off as the plastic is slightly bendy. If the Kings of War ones are as nicely sculpted, they should be great models... not that I need any more of them. They will also be nice large size demons for Frostgrave. These guys suffered from a partial varnish fail. You can see the white marbling on the back of the middle demon; though in this case it adds to the texture rather than obscuring detail; so not so much a fail as an unexpected detailing!

Last and definitely least are two of the ghosts from Shadows of Brimstone. These figures are some of the worst I've had the misfortune to work with. The detail is shockingly soft, which makes them ugly lumps... so a quick ghost paintjob was done at the same time as the DS banshee to get them out of the way. Scale wise they are only useful in Shadows of Brimstone as they are 1/48 (ish), which makes them really tall when compared to any other Old West figures that I have, even Black Scorpion.

Because it was asked in the Challenge comments, here is the recipe for the ghosts:

1. White undercoat
2. HEAVY wash of GW's Coelia Greenshade. Add some black wash to the deepest, darkest areas if you want to get it really dark
3. Wipe of excess with fingertip
4. Lightly drybrush white. Make absolutely sure the wash is dry first, otherwise you get weird green marbling instead (which actually works sometimes)

As there is the Frostgrave side challenge currently running, it is about time that I started to put together some warbands as well as all the random monsters, so we will start with some necromancers.  On the right we have Mortibris, the necromancer from Dungeon Saga. As a model he's a bit bland and lacks a lot of crisp detail, so some exaggerated highlighting and shadows were needed in some places. Accompanying him is the necromancer from Zombicide: Black Plague (hereafter called Lord Black). Lord Black and his apprentice, Mortibris, will lead one of the Frostgrave warbands.

You can see from the scale here that Zombicide characters are a bit bigger than normal, but this is exaggerated by Mortibris, like all the heroes in DS, being tiny. Just wait until I get to the halfling character... he looks like a 15mm figure!

One of Mortibris' lead henchmen is this undead troll shaman. Model wise it has loads of detail that paints up really easily. I did, however, make the mistake of going for green robes along with the putrescent flesh colour, so it isn't as clear. I can't think of anything currently listed in Frostgrave for this one sadly.

Lastly we have some tormented spirits. I decided to do these as dark, glowing shapes rather than white ghosts to show their trapped, tormented and evil nature. These can be wraiths or spectres in Frostgrave.

The dead just keep on coming...

Following on from the skeletons and zombies earlier in the week, this time around we have some armoured warriors, some archers and the nastiest undead trolls. The Mantic undead trolls are massive beasts (those bases are 40mm) caught in a constant state of regeneration and death by necromantic magics. You don't want to mess with these... the level of detail on the models is fantastic. Much better than anything else I've seen Mantic do before.

The skeleton horde grows further with three swordsmen. The one good thing about the plastic is that a bit of hot water will allow for some tweaks to pose. For these three I just adjusted the arm position so they vary a bit.

Finally are three archers. Possibly my least favourite models in the Dungeon Saga undead range. Despite being reposed a few times, they keep on bending back into slightly wonky poses, but I suppose they are gangly skeletons... so it works. the Deadeye walkers from Zombicide: Black Plague will replace these ones eventually as they are much better archer undead.

No painting for a few days as we're off to do the Christmas rounds

Fantasy dead rising

With the Painting Challenge now under way I got the chance to have a crack at some of the Dungeon Saga figures. As I'm trying to work my way through each set in order, the first batch are all undead from the core DS adventures along with the extras from the KS campaign.

The skeletons are nigh on identical in pose to the classic Heroquest skeletons... though they do thankfully have the clown feet and ham-fists missing . You would, theoretically, be able to fit one of these inside the barbarian character. I'll do a side-by-side comparison when the heroes get painted. 

Next to GW's Vampire Counts skellies, these guys are pretty fragile, but they don't look too bad next to each other.

Then we have some classic style zombie peasants. I wasn't too impressed with these ones when they first arrived, but now they are painted they look pretty good. 

And some more feral looking zombies that look far more like Mantic's ghouls... so I can see them changing role once the Zombicide: Black Plague zombies start to be painted up.

Dungeon Saga furniture

With the painting challenge fast approaching, lots of time is being spent prepping models, sorting spreadsheets with active projects and laying down a Dungeon Saga challenge to anyone who wants to partake, the only limitation is that you must already be in the painting challenge.

The Dungeon Saga challenge is to paint up all of the heroes and monsters in the Dungeon Saga core set. The winner is the first person to complete the models in the below image. The prize is bragging rights and one model from each of the other participants (the losers choose what fantasy model they send the winner). If you want to join in, just add your name to the thread on the Challenge blog.

Anyway... as I'm aiming to get the DS models all painted up over the next few months, I decided I should probably sort out the furniture while I'm waiting. There are still all the barrels, chests, doors and some of the stonework pieces left to do, but it's a good start to the set

While I was taking these photos, I also took some nicer ones of the various pieces of scatter terrain and added them to the terrain project page.

Leaving present

On friday one of my developers left us to go and start a career in support. She is a long-time D&D player, with an elf mage character. We've been talking about painting for a while as she's been trying to find a nice figure to use in their games, so as her leaving present I picked up one from Heresy. She seemed very pleased with it...

Dungeon Saga Card Reference List

Yesterday I realised that I've been poking through the various Dungeon Saga boxes, admiring the figures and tiles and flicking through the books, but havn't actually had a proper look at the hundreds of cards that are included. My main concern here has been knowing what is in each of the packs in order to try the beginner adventures as there is a small pack called "Open these first". This pack contains a few of the basics that are needed to teach the game.

Thanks to my inability to sleep last night, I now have a nice little sortable spreadsheet with nearly every card listed. Some of the cards are a little hard to add as there are no unique identifiable bits of text on them. A little more pondering is needed for these cards.

A few people on the Mantic forums asked about access to the file, so I've added it to my google drive for people to use. It is currently read only as I want to at least finish the cards first.

If you're interested you can access it here, or on the new Dungeon Saga project page up at the top ^^^

[Update]
It looks like it is no longer just a card reference list. I've just added

• Pre-generated Characters
• Character creator races
• Character creator careers
• Bestiary

The Bestiary includes all references to every unit listing, even if I know it is elsewhere. At some point I'd like to work out if they are all the same stats, or if there are differences.

Next up... all the adventures!