Tortugastra Interior Decorating Start

My 15mm space station nears completion.  Of sorts.  This is the sort of project that begs for little details.  Take a look at the bar and lounge area shown here.  It's ready for gaming with all the final cover in place and painted, but it still needs some curtains behind the stage, posters for local synthwave bands on the walls, and a decent rack of booze behind the bar.

 

The rest of the station is waiting for this sweet haul of loot from GCMinis and Khurasan to get painted up and fixed permanently in place.  

Before permanent installation, I dry-fit the naked terrain in place just to make sure that everything looked good and that I knew where it would all live at the end of the day.  As you can see, the place is really starting to come to life!

I did have a bit of salvaged terrain already dumped in place, and some more kitbashed works in progress, but you'll have to wait for those.  Full details on the construction of this lovely terrain will be provided on my Joy of Wargaming videos in the coming weeks.

The Joy of Wargaming - The Pilot

The online wargaming world features a dearth of wargaming videos that feature smaller and more quirky fare.  The Youses and he Tubeses and the Twitches have plenty of chubby beard-o weird-o's uploading hours of content dedicated to the 800-pound gorilla games.  Some of those channels are even pretty good, and my personal favorite the 800-pound gorilla of wargaming channels, Guerilla Miniature Games, even dips down into the Osprey ranges often enough to keep me checking in on a regular basis.

To help close that gap in the line, I've started my own channel - a way of giving back to the community from which I have learned so much.  The Joy of Wargaming will feature a host of topics, including play-throughs, rule reviews, unboxings, and my own favorite feature, Painting Alone Together, in which I slap some paint on my figures and throw some observations, tips, and commentaries along the way. 

With plans to post every other day, and a focus on the niche corners of this niche hobby, it is a niche corner in the niche wargaming corner of this niche tabletop hobby.  And of course, we'll still be throwing shots and posts up here at the home office for those of you that are more reader than viewer.  If you're looking for somebody to keep you company during your own painting sessions, give it a shot.

WIP: Tortugastra

My sci-fi boys have been warring over the same stretch of suburban ground for years.  They deserve a proper star-faring battleground.  To that end, I have been slapping glue, foamcore, and paint around the kitchen table for a while.

Just a sneak peek at my own personal wretched hive, the seedy galactic waystop for captains of dubious moral and legal fiber.  The Star Turtle represents the best of the worst - a Casablanca for the star drive set where all your quasi-legal dealings can be dealt...if the price is right.

New Project In The Works

Not quite ready for the full reveal just yet, but I've been working on a new way of sharing this hobby with you fine people. In the meantime, here are a few random shots of my table that will factor in.

Scraping the Bottom of The Lead Pile

Rebel Minis makes these slick little gunfighters called Titan Scouts.

Kind of.  The three figs on the right are untouched savr by the loving caress of a paint brush.  The pack comes with two sets of three poses, and since I am building more of a lite RPG collection, that simply won't do.

Modding 15mm figs takes a keen eye and a cool hand.  Which is why I limit myself to head and weapon swaps.  Rebel's line is more of a hard sci-fi line-up, so I amputated the swords and  a lefheads fromtover dark elf.  The tall fella in the center is one of the dark elves with a bald head and goggles and a pistol for that crucial space opera vibe. 

And don't worry about my lead pile.  I've got a lot of terrain bits to work with, and more figs on the way. Wait'll you see the new ground I have in mind for these fellas to fight over.

Fastasy Roster

My first playthrough of the one dungeon to rule them all exposed a few holes in the lineup.  The place lacked a decent missile threat and that all important 'ambush factor'.

To beef up the undead ranks, and make parties that lack a clericbreally feel the pain, my necromantic antics now include this squad of standoffish blokes.  Good luck returning fire - arrows only do half-damage thanks to their lack of fleshy tissue.

I want to say these guys are Alternative Army boys, but they have been in my lead pile for so long, I honestly can't remember.

Likewise with these shroomen.

Khurasan maybe?  Whoever made them, these shrieker ranchers a fun addition to the mushroom forest seen here:

Scale Neutral Fantasy Terrain

Nothing helps sell the players on the notion of the dungeon as a place of pure, seething chaos like a good altar of evil, expect maybe TWO altars of evil.

 

Finding fifteens in the local FLGS (that aren't remaindered Flames of War remnants) represents one of those fun challenges that true gamers embrace.  This little altar for instance, allegedly scaled for the big 28mm figures, offers a chance of three different pieces for my preferred fifteens.

Of which I took two.  For permanence, the base and top have been joined permanently, creating a sort of summoning circle.  The round altar pillar has a convenient bit of stone finishing on top, making the pedestal a perfect height and look for a dark altar graven with ghastly visages and pressed with the bones of its victims.  Yeah, the skulls on the dais are a little oversized, but that can be chalked up to either stone carven skulls, or the skulls of giants, depending on the DMs mood and inclination.  The latter - ten giants killed to create the dais - has wide ranging implications perfect for your chief, jarl, or king's local steading, rift, or hall.

The pre-primer on these resin pieces didn't work out so well.  The red basecoat, done to provide a hint of eldritch and bloody mortar joining the stones, took several coats to reslly stick.  Next time I will prime coat Wiz-Kid's 'preprimed' figures for better and more consistent coverage.