Time for my close up

 In the current age of internet hobbying, there are countless images and videos of the highest quality painted models, photographed super close in the highest resolution. Don't get me wrong, I love seeing them and have the greatest of respect for these talented people. This is their hobby (or their job) and I don't want to disregard that at all. I myself also get enjoyment in painting something to my highest quality and sharing it, on this blog of course as well as an social media. With that in mind though, I sometimes need to remind myself of the other reason I paint models, to play games. 

When you get your models on the table and roll some dice, no-one is looking at whether the eyes are perfectly painted, or five shades of highlight have been applied to the nose of each model. You spend the entire time looking at the back of your entire army, until they start retreating that is. When I first started painting, it was purely to get models on the table. I once painted 60 Skaven rat slaves in one evening to get them ready for a battle for the next day. (Spray brown, paint noses black, paint spear points metallic and paint the bases green. Done)

So I would like to spend a blog post talking about those models not painted so well. This is all done with love, I never want any reader to think I am mocking anyone, or judging their painting skills. I just want to share with you one of my hobbies, browsing Ebay and taking close up screen shots of model faces. Please note, these are not my painting and I would share the artists details (yes I consider them artists, all art is art regardless of the "quality") but I feel it would be less kind to credit rather than not.

We start with Mephiston. A great close up. I suspect on the table this actually looks really great, I love what they were going for with the white and grey. In close up he does look like a member of Kiss. It's better painted than I did this model back in the 90's. 

I love these guardsmen. They were described as "Schmo Painted", I'm not sure what that means and yet I kind of do. They are actually quite well painted and would probably look great on the table. I just love the expressions in close up so I had to share.

This one really just suffers from the photography, a Sister of Battle with no shading whatsoever. The dots for eyes are at least level.

Unlike Mr Space Marine Scout here who was described as "Pro Painted". A description on E-bay that makes me laugh for many reasons. Technically I guess, anyone who has painted a model for someone else and cash has exchanged hands could describe themselves as a "Pro Painter". This definition is why my idea of having separate categories for Pro Painters in painting competitions is an impractical solution for giving us less talented painters a chance. 

This little dude, probably looks great on the table surrounded by a thundering charge of cavalry. Close up he looks like he has just done a whoopsie in his lower armour.

I love this one, clearly someone has not thinned their paints and just dumped it on. I suspect a younger painter. You know what though? I think it is great that they have had a go. The colours are defined and they have that nice neat line of blue on the piping. This Ultramarine does need a Biostrip bath though to reach his full potential.

Now, this Commissar does look great, in fact I would say they have done a better job than I would have done. Again though it has been listed as Pro Painted, a description I think is pushing it a little. I'd love the number of his dentist.

Another Pro Painted, which to be fair, on the table probably looks super great. I would suggest investing in a nice soft brush for dusting down the model before photographing though. I love the weird negative eyes.

I'm sharing this one because the seller listed it as "Badly Painted" a description that was probably not required, but I admire the embracing of it.

This Space Marine scout is I suspect a victim of a combination of lack of undercoat and some terrible storage. I love the haunted look he now has though, the horrors he has seen, rattling around in a cheap Woolworths toolbox with his fellow squad. He has definitely been well loved and had some great battles, rolling a 4 up for all results and not worrying too much about the rules of the game. Oh, and props to the artist for the addition of flock for camo. He is a scout after all.

The blue, the blur, the red, the grey eyebrows. There is so much to unpack here. To be honest the photo probably doesn't show it but I think there is probably some cool highlighting/shading there. Why should all Space Marines be white?

I'm totally getting some Manga vibes here. I have super respect for the artist though for getting that fine straight eyebrow and that thin mouth line. I think this is a Captain Tycho model, if it isn't, that is a very thick chunk of gold paint splashed across one side of his face.

Ol' blue eyes here is a Dark Angel Space marine I think. A great example of why I hardly ever even attempt painting eyes. 

Finally my favourite. A Gretchin from the Space Crusade board game. The artist has chosen to ignore the standard greenskin colouring that most painters go for. Instead, they chose a thick layer of flesh coloured paint that makes the model look like he is wearing a halloween mask. The black dots for eyes are perfectly placed, which makes it look even creepier. They were listing a whole set of these with the accompanying Orks, which means they never regretted this colour scheme. Love it.

In the interest of fairness then, here is a close up of a model i have painted.

That sideways glance is hilarious. I think I was just glad I got them looking the same way. Yes he is a halfling, but that is some deep red blusher.

So, don't fret too much about what your model looks like in a close up photo. Unless you are a "Pro Painter", you just need to make it look good enough for the table. If you are painting up large companies of men, the spectacle will be enough to look great. Of course if you want to spend an a long time painting one model, you do that too. That is one of the great things about this hobby, you can take a completely different approach to the hobby to the next person. I hope no-one takes offense at my brief reviews of the above models, it is all done with love. The people that painted them are all artists in my view and I applaud them all for their efforts and hopefully the joy it brought to them. They put some paint on them. A far better thing that fielding unpainted armies. After all, we all know the greatest crime is fielding an unpainted army! 

TTCombat mystery box

I'm normally a canny shopper, always trying to get the best bargain. If I'm looking for something I want on ebay, I'll be firm with myself and lose a bid if it is going too pricey. I am also very aware that even though I carefully consider most purchases I still have a reasonably large pile of wargaming goodies that I haven't used. So, you would think buying a box of unidentified goods would not be a risk I was willing to take. But heck, sometimes you have to live a little and a surprise is fun. I've been known to buy collectible card games and random mystery vinyl 'things' so I'm not completely averse to the mystery. I used to love a lucky dip as a kid, who didn't?

So when I saw Troll Trader (or TTCombat) were advertising a mystery box of '£100 of goods' for £30, I thought I'd have a little fun. £30 is in that price range that I'm willing to part with and I was confident that in their product range there would be something I like.

I'd thought I'd share with you all the results, I wasn't wholly disappointed.

I thought I would put the items in a vague order of least exciting/useful first to the most last. So, to begin with:

 

 

Hmm, basic set of Age of Sigmar rules? Probably not even the most recent? Not a great start, I might not even try selling this but bin it instead. As an old fart that was sad when the Old World was first killed off, on principle I have never played any game of AOS. It's stubbornness I know, but TOW I'd back now, so I'm happy.

 

A dice tin that on the back says contains ten Eldar Harlequin Dice. It lied, it was empty.

There was a set of dice in the box though. I have no clue what they are for. Anyone who could identify them for me would be doing me a favour.

Some static flock, might be useful, although I don't normally use static. What am I? A model railway enthusiast?

Trees. I do hate trees. A neccesary evil, but who hasn't knocked over a tree or two in a tabletop game. These seem a little small, definitely not 28mm scale, but they will do I suppose.

A couple of primers. The blue will be handy for when the Enthusiastic opponent gets some more Space Marines. He insists on painting them up as Ultramarines just like the box art. The gold may not be as useful unless I use a whole roll of masking tape and then spray the trims.

Interesting names.

 

A bag of paints. Some are for airbrush, something I do not have any use for. I'm guessing they are just thinner acrylics, so maybe I could use them for mixing. The rest are speed paints.

It's a nice looking red, I'll give it a go.

Some mahoosive oval bases. What am I, an Age Of Sigmar player? Give me square bases any day.

I've never been one for textured bases before. You need a bit of a flat surface to glue the feet to normally. I'm going to have to use green stuff, filing or pinning to make these work. There are some cool looking ones in there though. maybe I will be a convert. (To be honest until now I've probably been to tight to buy textured bases.)

Ah, bazinga.  I picked up the Rumbleslam starter set at Salute, so this is a perfect addition.

Some random elf figure. I will prob paint it up and throw it in my d&d box. It's always good to have a choice of adventurer types for inspiration when creating a character.

 

 

Some random gun holding hands. These will be super useful to add to my Space Ork bits box. I am always after extra guns for my Orks to hold. I tend to find metal orks with no arms. (The plastic arms always seem to have been lost or broken.) These will be super useful. (Although why do people only seem to sculpt right hands holding guns. Are there no south paws in sci fi?) 

 

 Love these goblins. I will paint them up and add them as a unit to my Night Goblin army. They are a little taller than my current plastic  goblins, but maybe they can be the older/bigger chaps that guard the spellcasters. 

Finally some dusty looking target locks. These are designed for the X-Wing game, although it is always useful to have various types of tokens to hand for different reasons. You always need to indicate something in a game, whether it be an objective, or marking a unit as aiming or suppressed.

 

In conclusion, I paid £30 and there is probably about £30 worth of stuff I was excited about. The rest of the £100 worth of stuff? Well, most of it will find some use, but that AOS rulebook and the dice tin are worthless.  I would say in total there probably is £100 worth of items, I always say though something is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it. Am I happy with my purchase? I think so. Would I do it again? Maybe.

Salute round up

It's a week late, but I thought I should talk about my day out at Salute. Regular readers know this yearly day out in London is always on my social calendar so I am an old pro at navigating the backpacks and trolley suitcases.

Distinguished Opponent and I set out super early from home (Although not as early as previous years due to the new convenience of the Elizabeth Line.) We got to the Excel at around half eight, so managed to join the queue before it got too long. Just before opening I managed to get this photo of everyone behind us:

So many backpacks

When the show opened we decided to head immediately to the opposite end of the hall and work our way backwards. A great tactic to avoid the crowds at the beginning of the show (maybe I shouldn't be telling you all this for next year.) This choice did mean that we hit up Rogue Hobbies stand at the start of the show so I got to have a chat with Louise (Savage Orc Guy) who is on one of my favourite YouTube casts, Jugz. 

	Yes, I am bending my knees and Louise is in her big heels

The Rogue Hobbies Rascal Town range

 

 

Sadly I missed Rob (who was somewhere around) and Peachy missed the show entirely due to terrible traffic on the day. I did sit down though for the Hobbies round-up panel later in the day which Rob seemed to be the unofficial moderator of.

A great panel, I even got to ask a question

Next up a visit to TTCombat was in order. Every year I am tempted to look at their Rumbleslam range so I felt I should finally investigate and I had a go at the demo game.

Concentrating

The basic set has a mousemat ring

"So, I throw you out of the ring"

I apologise that I cannot remember the chaps name, but he did his job well, as despite losing the game I opted to go all in and buy the core game and a couple of extra wrestlers.  I also upgraded to an mdf ring and had it built the day after Salute:

Just needs a lick of paint

I have managed to make a start on my wrestlers

It's a quick fun game and I am already eyeing up some more of the characters.

I had to make a visit to Realms of Tiberium. I had to apologise as the purchase I made from them last year is still on my to do pile. It's a great sculpt, so good that I am finding it a little intimidating to finish. Come back to me this time next year and I might have it done.

Love that middle sculpt

I am looking forward to the release of the new model in the middle of this shot which I am sure will also intimidate me for a while once purchased.

Obviously we had to make a visit to see Annie at Bad Squiddo, whilst the Distinguished Opponent shopped, I sat at the colouring in table and chatted to Annie and Lil. It was a welcome rest for my weary legs at that point.

My best art work this year

Love these vignettes

 

 

Even if my photography is terrible

 

 

The new biker gang

Another new idea at Salute was the kitbash corner. A whole group of artists displaying their work using wargaming supplies (or inspired by) that was showing some unusual pieces of work in miniature.  It was quite busy so I couldn't get many photos but I did get this of work done by Laurence known as "Baharroth the cry of old paint" which was inspiring:

I really wanted to get loads of close up shots of this, but they all came out terrible

I managed to briefly say hello to some online friends from the blogsphere (very briefly as i wanted to get to the next panel) and we did also manage to meet up with the Illustrious Opponent as well. I had great fun even though as per usual it was an unseasonably warm day. I have heard on the internet grapevine that the day was a massive success for most folks, attendance numbers were in the post 7 thousands and close to maxing out the venue capacity, the South London Warlords should be proud of their efforts.

Thanks to the Distinguished Opponent for photography assistance, he is always willing to join me for such an early start on this day out with very minimal grumbling. (Making sure he gets caffeine on arrival at Excel is a must.) 

Punk Wargaming

 

The world of wargaming has always been a little bit punk. Bear with me as I give my argument.

“The punk ethos is primarily made up of beliefs such as non-conformity, anti-authoritarianism, anti-corporatism, a do-it-yourself ethic, anti-consumerist, anti-corporate greed, direct action, and not "selling out".”   - Wikipedia.

All right, maybe not all these things, but I would definitely say the non-conformity and do-it-yourself ethic have always been there. When addressing this topic it is difficult to not address the great big Oliphaunt in the room, Games Workshop, so we may start with them. Early days of GW were what I would call punk. The adopting of sci-fi and fantasy themselves in a wargaming setting were definitely not the accepted norm in the hobby at the time. 

Up until that point wargaming was mostly re-enactment of real historical settings. The industry itself was still very small and a lot of hobbyists were casting their own soldiers in lead in sheds and kitchens across the country (something I think of as a little bit punk too.)

These actual punks appear in the first edition of 40k, Rogue Trader

Going forward through the eighties with the actual birth of punk, we have the release of GW’s sci fi game Warhammer 40,000 Rogue Trader. Is it a coincidence that another British home grown success, the comic 2000AD had a similarly named title. Another company that had a punky anti-establishment feel to it.

Another image from Rogue Trader, real punk vibes

Early GW games had their own limitations due to the range of products not covering everything required, so there has always historically been an encouragement of colouring outside the lines by the hobby including scratch building or “converting” as the slang was at the time. This was also partly due to the inclusion of randomness in some of the rule sets. I am guessing this is something that bled over from early roleplaying games like Dungeons and Dragons where players liked the dice to decide what their characters attributes were.

Random ability table from Rogue Trader

Still a popular game today, Mordheim encouraged scratch building your gangs as well as buying the provided kits.

The possessed gang could even gain mutations, definitely something that needed a bit of hobby converting!

As GW became a shareholder led business, they themselves have become the corporate, consumerist entity that punk is “anti” so it obviously leads to these attitudes being less encouraged. I’m not completely against this, when a company grows and has to start ensuring that it has a guaranteed business certain decisions have to be made. The company still has a place in the hobby, it definitely is the gateway drug into a large community that definitely would suffer without it.

The Freebooterz expansion rulebook had a whole army list of Ork/Genestealer hybrids that could only be played with conversions. There were no models!

So, what is Punk Wargaming now? Well, I think I have come up with a definition.

Punk Wargaming – Wargaming with the rule of cool. Not always using models for their intended purpose. Scratch building and converting models. Finding a way to play a game in your own budget. Playing to tell a story rather than win a game.

Not all of the above is required to be a Punk Wargamer. But having the attitude to accept these things in your opponent as well as yourself is probably enough to cover it. So, how do I join the gang I hear you ask? Well, luckily in this current world of the World Wide Web, PDF's, self publishing, 3D printing, it is easier than ever to be a Punk.

Firstly there are a lot of rule sets out there now for whatever your budget. There are free rules from the likes of the 28 community who I would definitely say are Punk Wargamers. There are various self published rules out there that expect you to find your own models.

Self published skirmish cyber-punk rules from Wargamer Punk Patrick Todoroff

If you are still a bit of a traditionalist but want to be a bit punk, well Opsrey do a whole range of miniature agnostic rules. Some which cover historical periods as well as sci-fi and fantasy. The best way to be a Wargaming Punk however when it comes to rules is to write your own. if you aren't confident enough yet maybe use an existing set of rules and write a set of house rules or a campaign. Be inspired. (As long as you don't start publishing and making money from this, being a Punk does not mean being a stealing douchebag, Respect copyright laws)

If you want inspiration for being a Hobby Punk, you are advised to go and watch all the videos from Trent at Miscast. I can heartily recommend his channel, it's great fun. If the written word is more your preference, then go read 28 magazine for inspiration from a whole host of hobbyists. Or if you don't think you can cope with making a mess with hot glue guns and resin, then maybe try some 3D sculpting, you may surprise yourself.

Or, if you just want to buy some different models for your games, then start looking around on the internet for alternatives. Maybe visit Ramshackle games or The Still Tower, two companies who I would say are Punk Wargamers. Or buy something from one of the hundreds of smaller companies out there. Why would you want to have exactly the same models as everyone else in your army at club night, you're a Wargaming Punk now, be individual. (Although I don't recommend putting a safety pin through your nose, Sepsis is still a thing.) Next time you are at a show and you see a model on display, when you say to your friend "That's cool, but I have no use for it in my games". Buy it anyway, you will find a good use and it will look cool on the table.