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RhodericMemberI expect it’s going to be the desert noblewoman’s palace, but at this stage the general shape of the thing makes me see a small roadside Nevada casino
RhodericMemberI’ve been meaning to start a thread about all the different aesthetic portrayals of space dwarfs that manufacturers have been coming up with. These ones strike me as quite realistic in terms of anatomy and the size/proportions of their gear (I wonder if Wargames Atlantic have plans to make medieval fantasy dwarfs with that same design philosophy), although they lean in heavier for the archaic viking vibe than some other manufacturers do.
I want them, but then I want the alternative aesthetics from other companies, too. It’s hard to decide what my ideal space dwarfs would look like.
RhodericMemberI do hope they fix the lip sync problem. Kurosawa mode sounds awesome otherwise but I can’t see myself playing it if the face animations remain stuck on English speech.
RhodericMemberI don’t expect a good port to come out of Sony, they’ve rarely put out good ports, Nier Automata was an unsupported disaster.
Nier Automata is a Square Enix game. I was about to say Sony never ports its in-house games for other platforms, ever. But I just Googled it before hitting “submit” and realised they’re porting Horizon Zero Dawn for the PC, thereby ending their old policy. So who knows, maybe a Ghost of Tsushima PC port could be a thing after all?
RhodericMemberI had been anticipating it, maybe more than any other game that was set to launch in the final year of this console generation. But I’m now forced to cut back my video game budget, so it’ll have to wait for when it’s cheaper, or maybe when a PS5 version with enhanced graphics launches (if there will be one). For now I’ll just watch it on YT and Twitch.
It seems to be very much like an Assassin’s Creed game without the things I don’t like about that franchise. I’m glad Assassin’s Creed didn’t get to the feudal Japan theme first, or Ghost of Tsushima might never have been made.
This being a Sony game I can’t see it getting a PC port.
Interestingly it’s made by one of Sony’s Western studios, not a Japanese one. Seeing how they used Asian-American actors (very good ones) and the lip-synching matches only the English audio, I think of it entirely as a Western game, albeit one that gets the classic Japanese chanbara/jidaigeki feel quite right. The topic of historical invasion warfare between Japanese and mainland Asians might still be too sensitive in Japan for a Japanese studio to want to touch this subject matter.
RhodericMemberI love the colours!
RhodericMemberI know what a German soldier of 1941 should look like, but how do I know that the manufacturer does if I can’t see what they are offering? It goes far beyond knowing what a Sherman looks like.
Yup. Not only accuracy of the subject but the quality and so much more that can only be discerned by seeing it.
Not to mention sculpting style and general aesthetic direction. Assumptions can’t be made about which aesthetic a figure or model has been sculpted in, even with historicals.
RhodericMemberThe funny thing is that GZG used to have some old PDF catalogues with photos of many of the items that aren’t pictured in the webshop. They weren’t very good photos, but they were something.
RhodericMemberMy own search for die-cast cars in all scales relevant to miniatures gaming has paid off far better in 28mm than 15mm.
I’m pickier than many other hobbyists when it comes to these things, so I only want to use cars in the 1/52 – 1/60 range for 28mm (and I wouldn’t mix 1/52 with 1/60 on the same table), with 1/56 being ideal. 1/64 is miniscule, 1/48 is a tad too big for me personally, and 1/43 is wildly outsized. Even so, with a bit of searching in toy stores I was able to find enough cars in the right scale (mostly 1/56) to suit my purposes. The primary paydirt for me has been a line of 1/56 tie-in cars for the Fast & Furious films. Just keep in mind there are many different lines of Fast & Furious die-cast cars in different scales, so don’t get the wrong ones. I’ve also found some jeeps and more mundane cars from Majorette, which is a well-established competitor with the Hot Wheels and Matchbox brands in the European toy market. Most Majorette cars are 1/64 but there are a few bigger ones in the mix. My only problem in regard to finding modern-day vehicles to populate my 28mm tables is buses, lorries and things of that sort.
Here’s a previous TWW post I’ve written on the subject: LINK
I’ve not had much luck finding 1/100 cars, or 1/87 ones. I’ve seen some available from Chinese online vendors, but for some reason they were priced much higher than most other die-cast cars in larger scales. The product descriptions/pictures were also dodgy, leaving me uncertain that I really would have received what was advertised. Furthermore there wasn’t much variety. Aside from those, the usual Hot Wheels / Matchbox / Majorette lines have some vans, pick-up trucks, campers and similar vehicles that might be in the general ballpark of 1/87 – 1/100. It’s hard to tell when you’re just looking at them on a store shelf. Scales vary wildly for anything above a minivan.
If you do start buying die-cast cars for miniatures gaming, expect it to be a bit “lossy” in that not every item you purchase turns out to meet your requirements. That’s just par for the course.
RhodericMemberWarlord Games seem to still have the female survivor sprue in stock. You could maybe check if they’re able to tell you whether they’ll be restocking the male sprue at some point.
RhodericMemberIn fairness I can see K-drama having a certain “nerd culture” connection. When I first discovered the genre it was through the nerd grapevine, back when K-drama fandom in the West was an extension of J-drama fandom, which in turn was an extension of anime fandom.
Still it makes sense that TWW isn’t a website for nerd culture in general, but rather that one specific part of it which is conflict gaming with miniatures.
10/07/2020 at 00:31 in reply to: Am I the only hobbyist who simply doesn’t believe in undercoat colours? #140052RhodericMemberThere are two fundamental rules that most beginner guides to miniatures painting (at least most that I’ve seen) bang on about before they even get to the part where they actually start painting. The first is that the colour of the undercoat affects the end result. The second is that, at least before the optional highlighting stage, paints should be brushed on in multiple thin coats (with the premise that it’s a high-quality paint which has been watered down to a consistency similar to milk, or what you would put in an airbrush) until the colour appears as a solid, invariable block. My line of thinking is that the second rule makes the first one invalid. The only thing showing through the top coat of pigment (if anything is showing through at all) is more of that same pigment. This makes the cleanest colours, and the most saturated, assuming the paint is a bright, saturated colour to begin with.
Just for context: With a decent-quality paint, like most of the Vallejo paints, I find that even the saturated colours which don’t have much grey in them only take two coats. Some reds, yellows, pinks and oranges might take three, as might pure white and some creamy off-whites. Less saturated colours with more grey in them usually only take one. This is for an average-sized surface such as a uniform on a 28mm figure. I try to use saturated colours fairly sparingly, BTW.
Primer and undercoat are different in function. You can make one coat do both jobs but using an undercoat to affect the appearance of a following coat is not the purpose of primer.
I’m just using the casual terminology that probably most hobbyists use in variable forms. Granted it’s not the most precise, but then we’re not working in a car body shop or an art studio.
Let’s get back on topic before this turns into another confusing discussion about the difference or non-difference between a primer, an undercoat, a basecoat and the lowest uncovered “shading” layer of a layered paintjob. There’s no consensus about that in this hobby, and even the manufacturers fudge the terminology on a regular basis. See for instance Army Painter’s product descriptions for their sprays: They use “primer”, “undercoat” and “basecoat” interchangeably with no discernible pattern, and furthermore imply you could/should start highlighting or applying washes right on top of them. This is an untamed wilderness and I’d say it deserves its own thread, if not for my cynicism that such a thread would not make any progress sorting out the mess.
Yes, it works in my experience. As an example I’m currently painting some Tai Ping. They have dark blue clothes with red turbans, head bands and sashes, long black hair too. I need the red to really stand out so I undercoat the turbans etc in orange. I’m happy with the result.
Wouldn’t the red also stand out if you undercoated with more of the same red, instead of orange? Effectively, making sure the red is as “solid” a block of colour as possible, so that whatever colour is underneath doesn’t show through and influence it? My instinct is that this is the best way to achieve a striking saturated colour. It’s just an instinct, so I’m not trying to challenge your painting philosophy. I’m just curious about the whys and wherefores of the fundamental laws that govern the miniatures painting hobby.
RhodericMemberI enjoy all kinds of fantasy settings, so I’m prepared to modulate my disbelief accordingly. A setting where a single magic-user counts for the equivalent of 500 veteran household troops in terms of sheer power-projection can be fun (not better, not anything that I value higher than its more down-to-earth alternatives, but fun). When I’m in the right mood, I could gladly make that the fundamental premise of a setting, and then shape the rest of the setting around it, however much handwaving and shoehorning that might take. It is its own justification.
I recall an episode of Slayers where a naval battle took place, with a wizard at every gunport in place of a cannon. Ridiculous, but fun. Reminding myself of the enjoyment I’ve derived from ultra-high fantasy stories like Slayers allows me to put myself in the right mood.
RhodericMemberThat’s a very interesting method of sculpting bark texture you describe in your blog. I’ve never thought of hardened hot glue as a sculptable medium before. Will need to give that a try.
RhodericMemberI used WFB for mass battles, skirmish and even RPG type games for ages, back in the past.
Which edition(s)?
RhodericMemberI’ve accepted that the point of video gaming is only to take in the atmosphere, the pretty audiovisual impressions, the art direction, the worldbuilding, the storytelling (as experienced in a semi-detached way from “outside” the story) and the general inspiration. I still get a great deal of mileage from video games toward those ends, but I can’t really “live the story” with myself in it, at least not when playing strategy games or stealth games (two of my favourite genres). That experience remains on the other side of the impenetrable barrier that is idiot AI behaviour.
My most recent experience (about a month ago) of having a game partially “ruined” by AI behaviour was playing Stellaris. Repeatedly hemming in other empires by rapidly colonising my way to key star systems was far too easy. The AIs didn’t recognise what I was doing, so they never tried to race me to these points of obvious strategic importance. Once their artificial frustration at having nowhere left to expand led to war, their equally inefficient fleet movements made them easy to defeat. In the end I had to dumb down my own playstyle, so that I was basically mimicking their rudimentary rules of behaviour instead of even trying to outsmart them. At least that let me experience the unfolding of an interstellar sci-fi history without my own exploitative predations breaking suspension of disbelief, even if I didn’t feel like I was in the driver’s seat anymore. Having said all that, I’ve still been able to draw massive amounts of space-opera inspiration from that game (thanks to how stylish and atmospheric it is), much of which is helping me stay enthusiastic over my miniatures wargaming projects. So, overall, a net win.
RhodericMemberBeen meaning to get some mechs from both Mecha Front and Precinct Omega. They look great. Judging by photos, they don’t strike me as having more difficult-to-reach areas than a typical Dream Pod 9 mech, so I’m fairly sure I’m going to assemble them before painting.
All this is just personal preference, of course. I value being able to paint highlighting and shading in the right places, more than I value ease of access with a brush. Also I don’t want glue getting on top of the paint. I probably have a high tolerance level for putting up with painting hard-to-reach areas on figures.
RhodericMemberWhat ranges/manufacturers of mechs are you mainly thinking of? And do you mean regular brush painting or airbrushing?
Most mechs I’ve painted to date have been Heavy Gear and old Jovian Chronicles ones, painted by brush. I prefer to assemble them (with meticulous pinning) before painting. Personally I can’t really say I’ve experienced difficulties painting them that could have been avoided by leaving them unassembled. It also makes it easier for me to figure out where to paint shading and highlighting. For the same reason I don’t do magnetised interchangeable weapons, which I know some other Heavy Gear modellers are heavily into.
But of course, a typical Heavy Gear or Jovian Chronicles mech is much the same as a multi-part GW Space Marine in regard to the parts it comprises. I wouldn’t paint Space Marines unassembled either, and I suspect the same goes for most people (though I know there are some that do it). So maybe the mechs you have in mind are something different to what I’m thinking of?
As for airbrushing, I have the impression that people who paint their figures wholly or partially this way like to assemble them only afterwards, sometimes going so far as to leave them on the sprue (if there is one) during painting. I’ve never practiced airbrushing myself though, and it seems to me like a fairly small minority of people paint their wargaming figures (as opposed to gunpla-style display models) this way. The ones that do, seem to mostly be masterclass-level painters, which is a category I’m not even interested in aspiring to.
RhodericMemberThey’re still in the “probably” list. I definitely want a skirmish-size group of zombles for 28mm fantasy gaming. Originally I meant for these to be the undead from Gripping Beast’s “SAGA Age of Magic” range, but I realised after purchase that they’re really more like 32mm (which I really should have foreseen, knowing as I did that they’re Bob Naismith sculpts and he always sculpts his figures big). They’ll probably make good enemies for Reaper adventurers, so they’re not a write-off, but I still need a different set for true-ish 28mm. The Fireforge ones are the best-looking ones I’ve found so far. The Mantic zombies are also nice but I might not get enough variation in poses/clothing out of them.
The Northmen soldiers I mainly want for human-vs-human skirmish gaming in the general Game of Thrones-like vein of fantasy, so the question is where to find compatible adversaries. It would be arrogant of me to automatically expect Fireforge to make Lannister-style soldiers as matched opponents for the Northmen, but I still hope they will. For now I’m still weighing options.
RhodericMemberI really must educate myself about the Taiping Rebellion. I’m not reminded of it often enough, given how disproportionately obscure it is here in the West.
So, thanks for the reminder. The blog post was informative and the figures are neat.
RhodericMemberI’m deeply impressed. Something that self-serious could easily have fallen flat if it had been more amateurish, but as it is, it’s so superlatively stylish and well-produced that I loved every moment of it.
Having not really kept track of 40K fluff for a long while, I didn’t recognise whatever bit of lore these videos were pertaining to. Not a problem, though. Worth a watch all the same.
RhodericMemberDirtside II tips the list. Great game that people carp about endlessly endlessly because of the chit pull system. No idea why people hate it so much.
I always had the impression Dirtside II is generally considered venerable. Live and learn.
RhodericMemberHe was obviously completely unused to the idea of not buying ‘Big Spoon Wargames’ box set, the boxes of figures that ‘Big Spoon Wargames’ make and playing other ‘Big Spoon’ Players at games.
What really perplexes me is the way this attitude has expanded to concern terrain and scenery in some parts of the hobby community. Scratch-building your own trees, or even buying them from a model railroad shop, is unheard of in those circles. It has to be the GW hard plastic tree kits, or else the battle must be fought on a treeless plain. Ditto buildings. Some GW gamers seem to consider it right and proper that whatever venue you go to for a pick-up or tournament game, the same fortification with the same, well-known dimensions will be there. Almost like it’s become part of the metagaming.
With figures, my only reason for sometimes sticking with the official ones is that a lot of the games that have their own “proprietary” miniature ranges are very high-concept in regard to aesthetics and background setting. This makes suitable figures from third-party manufacturers something of a moot point on account of being non-existent. Obviously this doesn’t apply to 40K which has plenty of look-alike options from other manufacturers, but there are many other games where this isn’t the case. If I was playing Malifaux, for instance, I doubt I could find any non-Wyrd figures that could blend in with the official Wyrd ones. Sure, I could just toss some historical Old West gunslingers and Victorian adventurers in there, but they would still clash aesthetically, at least to my perfectionist eye. Another option is to shun high-concept game systems altogether in favour of more generic, “low-concept” ones, but I enjoy having a variety of projects, both low-concept and high-concept.
RhodericMemberLooks like there’ll be quite a few articles that will interest me in this issue.
RhodericMemberJust watched Ong-Bak 3, to make sure I wasn’t recommending a bad film. As an actual martial arts film it’s the least memorable of the series, but still above average. More importantly, as “accidental” swords-and-sorcery inspiration it’s even better than I remember 2 being (though admittedly it’s been over 10 years since I saw that one). It’s a bit slow and mystical in places, but nonetheless full of good visual inspiration for anyone wanting to do swords-and-sorcery adventures in a southeast Asian milieu. It even has the actual sorcery in it.
RhodericMemberDid you get around to watching Ong-Bak 2, which (unless I misremember) I recommended to you at some point? I know martial arts films probably aren’t your thing, but it’s got some nice southeast Asian scenery and costumes in it, and it’s set in swordfighting times with plenty of macho savagery going on. Ong-Bak 3 is probably worth watching for similar reasons, though I haven’t seen it myself yet and I’ve heard it’s less good as an actual martial arts romp. You can skip the first film if you’re simply not interested in the martial arts dimension of the Ong-Bak franchise, as it’s set in the modern day and has practically no connection to the sequels. It does happen to be the best martial arts film ever made, but I digress.
RhodericMemberThe Lesser Apes, Tin Mechanical Axemen and Screamers have me interested. I only want them in smaller quantities for skirmish gaming, but I’m still mulling over making a small pledge for one pack of at least one of those three units.
RhodericMemberHalf-overgrown road markers, the road itself having been reclaimed by nature (though some evidence of it may still remain in the way the vegetation grows).
TBH, though, you’re going to keep getting similar answers every time you ask for swords-and-sorcery terrain suggestions. Statues, standing stones, ruins, burial sites. We have the same ideas you’ve already thought of 🙂
RhodericMemberI differentiate between “indie” (or “small press”) games and “slick” games. I like both styles of gaming, and try to go for what feels right for the game in question. With indie games, a homebrew mentality is to be expected. It’s practical, easy-going and open-ended. With slick games, I must admit I see a certain charm in the, well, slickness of only using the proprietary miniature ranges, or third-party miniatures which are very obviously meant to slot into the game in question (a phenomenon that so far has been contained to the GW-sphere). In these cases it’s not about dogma, but simply about maintaining aesthetic unity (given that said games usually have a unique aesthetic that I’d rather not dilute), and not having to muck about with homebrew modifications for such high-concept rules systems because proxy miniatures break WYSIWYG.
Obviously this only applies to non-historical gaming. The only situation where I’d limit myself to proprietary miniatures in a historical wargame is when it’s rendered a moot point by the absence of alternatives in the same scale and sculpting style. Non-historical games open up a dimension of mutually exclusive aesthetics, which isn’t really an issue with historicals, aside from general differences in sculpting style.
It’s worth appreciating that there are some companies which aren’t really indie but nevertheless promote an indie-oriented attitude in regard to sourcing figures for their games. Osprey does this a lot. So does Warlord Games, at least as far as their fantasy game, Warlords of Erehwon.
RhodericMemberAt one point a few years ago, Brigade Models stated they were intending to expand the Aeronef range with Martian airships “in the coming year” (not their exact words, but it was something like that). Obviously those never materialised, though I don’t blame them considering all the many projects they have ongoing in parallel. I still remain hopeful that they’ll get around to it someday.
RhodericMemberImpressive! I can tell that they are lovely figures indeed.
RhodericMember…weird looks from strangers when I’ve been staring intently at, or frantically taking photos of, plants…
Not sure why you get weird looks – all seems perfectly normal to me…
It’s the intense concentration with which I stare at the plants, often very close up. It probably looks like I’m attempting to commune telepathically with them. Or pyrokinesis maybe. Something like that, anyway 🙂
RhodericMemberI “collect” plastic plants for terrain-crafting. I probably have nearly 100 different varieties by now. Furthermore, I’m rarely happy with the way they look in their original form, so I cut them up and “reassemble” them, leaf by leaf, blade by blade, frond by frond, into more realistic shapes. Most of them being made of oily plastic that doesn’t take glue or paint well, I spend a lot of time experimenting with different glues, paints and techniques for finding best practices. I’m fully aware I must seem a bit deranged even to other hobbyists.
Related to this is a slightly obsessive tendency I have for studying phyllotaxis and other subjects to do with the shapes and growth patterns of plants, specifically for purposes of crafting miniature terrain. I’ve gotten a lot of weird looks from strangers when I’ve been staring intently at, or frantically taking photos of, plants while out and about. Last time I visited a botanical garden I took over 300 photos.
This also extends in milder forms to studying and photographing other things in the real world as terrain-crafting and scenery-crafting reference material, such as geology or historical architecture. Typically when I visit some place such as a medieval castle or an area of dramatic rock formations, I take a couple hundred photos or more, none of them with people in it if I can help it. My sole interest in taking photos lies in its applications for the miniatures gaming hobby.
RhodericMemberAh, so you’re referring to the multipart design rather than the material itself. Gotcha.
BTW, do Warlord Games and Mantic Games need mentioning?
RhodericMemberThe Maelstrom’s Edge sci-fi game includes plastic sprues. Not a lot of people seem to be aware of this game/range.
Meanwhile I didn’t know Anvil Industries makes plastics, though I have been aware of the company itself. Time to go check it out again.
RhodericMemberWhere did the ?banana plant (left of top centre, last picture) come from? I reckon they’d look good with the dinosaurs I’ve just started painting.
If I’m not mistaken, it’s from a Pegasus Hobbies 1/72 scale banana plant sprue that I sent Mike at one point, with a selection of other plastic plants I’ve been obsessively amassing too many of.
RhodericMemberWhat was “Athabaskan” meant to be?
RhodericMemberThanks!
Some of the commentary I’ve picked up on 3D printers over the years have given me the impression that initial set-up can be quite a major undertaking. Then this made me wonder if maybe there were calibration issues complicating the matter of shifting a printer after it’s been set up.
RhodericMemberAn additional question, if Connard Sage doesn’t mind: How much space does a home-use 3D printer take, and can it be easily moved around (for storage) once it’s set up?
RhodericMemberIt also falls between two stools not quite being a skirmish game and not quite being a mass battle game.
I’ve lately been seing the term “small unit game” used to denote this type of game. Given the rise of popularity of small unit games in recent years, I’d say they’re sitting on a stool of their own by now.
BTW, as it happens I have my own issues with Dragon Rampant, but nothing major and not the same ones that have been brought up in this thread already.
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