This month has seen me move a couple of years past the half century mark. I feel much older, something of a relic really, far past my warranty….. but really it is the miles not the years!

My family was again very generous for my birthday, this being one of the rare occasions where I end up with some new miniatures & terrain rather than my usual budget conscious second hand items.

Over the coming weeks (EDIT: more likely months…. everything in this hobby takes longer than I expect!) I will share with you what their generosity has provided (some of it is still delayed due to being part of an order with pre-release pre-order items).

You may have been wondering if I have been painting at all… I have but not much finished. I have been spending a surprising amount of time doing prep work, learning how to operate my new airbrush, and getting things ready to put on eBay.

However, I did manage to finish a few things…

Some of the things I finished we will be keeping but some will go on eBay as I am not that keen on how they came out. For example that corner wall terrain piece came partly finished in a larger second hand lot we bought. I piece but it does not quite fit in with our other terrain so perhaps someone else will get more enjoyment out of it.

Better late than never they say… this is one of our holiday decoration miniatures and it was meant for last Christmas (EDIT: I try to do one every Christmas). When I did not finish it in time it languished on my work bench for far too long but it is finally done! I should probably start the miniature for next Christmas now.

It is a Reaper metal sculpt. Lots of little details, lots of character. My photo does not do it justice. It looks much better in person with the Mark 1 Eyeball.

Next up a couple of kitbash conversion minis that were intended to be Black Numenoreans for our Middle Earth games but I am not sure how I feel about the final results.

I started with Perry plastic bodies and added bits from various other sets to try to create a more “fantasy” feel to them. Fighting in cloaks is unwise.

Where I think I messed up was with the poses. I did them spontaneously (EDIT: As I normally do with building plastic minis) rather than planning them out. I have seen how some folks plan poses using blutack and I can see the advantage in that down. One mini looks too static and the other too dynamic to be living people. Swing and a miss I think.

I am also rethinking how we should represent Black Numenoreans in our games. I have been looking at a lot of different historical and fantasy sets trying to come up with something I can do relatively inexpensively that would look cool. Probably something without plate armor. It frustrates me that Peter Jackson and Weta added plate armor to Middle Earth and that GW used those movie designs to create cool looking Black Numenorean plastic cavalry sets but then only a couple of poses of metal Black Numenorean Infantry that do not actually look like the cavalry.

Perhaps Fireforge not-Starks, Byzantines or Templars? Perhaps Victrix Normans? Perhaps Gripping Beast & Wargames Atlantic Late Romans? I am undecided.

In the same lot as the corner walls we also got these translucent 3d printed pieces. I based them and added hands to the ghostly warrior, the idea being the body may be spectral but the weapons can physically hurt you. No idea why the mini had no hands to start with.

I think we will keep the horse but put the warrior on eBay.

Next is an obelisk that was a gift from our mate Tom.

He designed it from scratch, digitally sculpted it and then 3d printed it. Presenting it to us during his visit from the UK, which I mentioned in a previous post, he left the painting up to me. It was quite a challenge painting it as I was trying to find was to deal with or mitigate the print lines.

In the end, instead of trying to work “against” the lines I tried to work “with” them… ie treat them as an intentional part of the design. I think it worked alright in the end and I quite like the piece.

And here we have some assorted bits…

The cart was won as part of a larger eBay auction. It arrived painted to a decent standard and only had to do a few small changes for it to better fit our color palette.

The undead beastie (cat? dog?) is a bit from a Mantic skeleton sprue. The rest of the sprue and various other Mantic skeletons went back onto eBay. Once my Frostgrave Wizard becomes a Lich (one day!) he will only be able to summon undead animal companions so this should work nicely.

The scatter pieces are resin North Star official Frostgrave objective markers. They are neat decorations but really I like objective markers in Frostgrave to be more… universal? Vague? Mysterious? Since you do not know what you found until after the game it seems odd to run over to a ring or potion bottle on the table to only later roll a set of magic armor as your treasure. But they should look good as flavorful scatter decorations.

As for my birthday, again I am very thankful for my loving family! Sometimes I wonder how I have gotten so fortunate.

While my pile of gifts was large and diverse, I do not have a big “loot haul” photo, but for now there are these Games Workshop Necromunda figures and terrain that Mrs. GG got for me. GW has gotten better at coming up with things I like lately and these lack the usual, overly skull festooned Gothic aesthetic of 40k Grimdark (barring that one sign).

The figures will be an experiment to kitbash with bits from other companies and perhaps paint up in schemes inspired by Elbows over on the Lead Adventure Forum, who seems capable of making even sculpts I normally do not like look brilliant.

As for other GW stuff catching my eye, GW was close with their new Ash Wastes landtrain, however a few too many Gothic arches and skills for my taste…

…. but I must admit I do like the new Necromunda Ash Wastes box set!

Here is a good review…

https://spruesandbrews.com/2022/04/30/necromunda-ash-wastes-unboxing-and-review/

I love the buildings and the nomads look brilliant, especially the “flea riders.” Nicely innovative designs, even if some folks think the aesthetic is too much Tusken “Sand People” influenced and looking more Star Wars than 40K. Maybe that is why I like it?

It may look even better repurposed for a water or swamp world setting.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2022/03/24/necromunda-ash-wastes-revealed-in-full-at-adepticon/

Sadly they will all likely be more than I am willing to pay unless I find them second hand on eBay at some point. GW Hobgrots are cheap on eBay right now for example. Maybe the kit will still be around for my next birthday…

Truth is though, I am not sure exactly how I would use these. Twilight ‘49 somehow? Core Space? Stargrave? Five Parsecs from Home? I have some Kroot from a lucky eBay auction awhile back that I want to paint up and put to use as well. I just am not sure how yet. Dieselpunk exploration of a fictional Mars and Venus with Human breathable atmosphere? A post-apoc wasteland on Earth for Twilight ‘49?

Speaking of Twilight ‘49, Mrs GG’s parents very kindly gifted me some outstanding pulp sci-fi miniatures from Bombshell in the States. Far too expensive for me to have justified buying for myself, especially with the constantly rising postage costs, taxes and handling fees.

But these will go great with the Mantic Mars Attacks aesthetic. Sadly the Bombshell spare helmets are too big to be replacements for lost Mantic Martian helmets. However the sculpts are brilliantly crisp and characterful.

It is a bit of a running gag, which Mrs GG is not very fond of but tolerantly plays along with, that with my body giving me so much trouble these days that I would volunteer to become the first Fallout style Robobrain. And these Bombshell miniatures do the “brain in a jar cyborg ” very well.

She also got me the Reaper Bones “brain in a jar” for my Twilight ‘49 project. One of the great things about Mrs. GG is that she “gets me” if you understand what I mean. A true soul mate.

Mrs. GG‘s parents also funded a new Ikea display case to add to the collection in our gaming room. It is largely empty right now waiting for our Dwarven Forge Wildlands and Monster Fight Club terrain kickstarter pledges to arrive.

Our gaming room is not finished yet but we are making progress and I love how it is developing. Again I am so thankful for what I have been to fortunate to have in my life.

Mrs. GG took some time off work and while Little GG was at school we got some Frostgrave games in. Three games to be precise.

Technically Mrs. GG “won” two of the three games thanks in large part to her better movement spells, getting three of the five treasures in those games as well as both of us accomplishing our “Ulterior Motives” in each game without any permanent casualties. We do play “competitively” in as much as we race to secure treasures but we are not confrontational, we do not attack each other. So it is not cooperative per se but sort of. It is a different gaming experience than the game is designed for but it works for us.

We are taking a bit of a short cut by playing with some unpainted minis, which I dislike, but if we wait for all the minis to be painted we will be waiting a very long time to play!

Since we are using unpainted minis we did not take many photos and there will not be battle reports on the games. I will say we are using all the Frostgrave books, including the Spellcaster books and it makes for great games although we are probably forgetting or overlooking various rules.

Also, since time was short we set up the table in a rush each time… so not ideal tables to be fair but each was a learning experience. I thought the cobblestone mat would be great for our city adventures but it is not quite working for me right now and I am not sure why. Perhaps it is a little too busy when there is not enough terrain on it?

In other news…

I finished the Korean zombie tv series “We are all Dead”.

The first couple of episodes were difficult to get through but it paid off. It got better once it moved beyond appearing to just be a teen drama. It was decent up until the last episode which’s was disappointing. I wonder if there will be a second season, part of me wants to pick things up that were left unfinished but part of me hopes that it is just left as is… because I am not sure they can do a decent ending.

Decent endings seem to be a problem.

Mrs. GG and I watched Netflix live action version of Cowboy Bebop. Now, bear in mind we have not watched the anime… but we seem to be in the minority in that we enjoyed it!

I liked it more than Mrs. GG did. Well actually I loved it while she just liked it. But the final episode was terrible and the news that it was cancelled is very disappointing. Mrs. GG said that Jet Black reminded her of yours truly (not in looks but in personality) and I have to admit I felt a certain kinship with the character. So many times I watched him do things, say things, and I would think… “Yup, that could be me.”

The show felt like a fun mix of Buckaroo Banzai, Firefly, Killjoys, and Phillipe Marlowe.

I suppose I will need to watch the anime series now.

Surprisingly I convinced Mrs. GG to watch 55 Days in Peking. Unlike Zulu, it was not as good as I remembered.

What was good was Bohemian Rhapsody.

Mrs. GG and I were both surprised how much we did not know about Queen and we found it enjoyable to learn more about them. I definitely definitely recommend it.

Another film we watched which was entertaining, if sad, and yet also informative. In the Heart of the Sea.

Based on a book that was reportedly one inspiration for the classic Moby Dick, a book actually inspired by reality it seems.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essex_(whaleship)

Mrs. GG and I had no idea so many ships had been sunk by whales.

I find it fascinating that I can watch a war film and see myself facing the horrors of war as a soldier with stoicism but the idea of getting into a row boat with such creatures in the water as an angry whale or a hungry shark terrifies me. A product of military conditioning perhaps?

We both find whaling to be incredibly tragic and horrific. A dark stain on humanity, it also serves as foreshadowing for other environmental disasters, such as what happened to the Buffalo, as well as yet another lesson in greed. If only humanity would learn from its mistakes.

Speaking of mistakes….

What was not good was the recent season break return episode of Fear the Walking Dead, where Alicia is saved by a deaf musician. An interesting premise plagued by atrocious writing. Some of the very worst writing in all of the various Walking Dead shows.

Absolutely contradictory, foolish and in the end pointless. The episode after that was cruelly bittersweet and predictable but atleast not the complete trash that almost stopped me from watching any more Fear the Walking Dead. Apparently “falling” in love in the Walking Dead universe is a death sentence, especially Fear. “Falling”… wink wink, nudge nudge, know what I mean…. see what I did there? Oh so clever writers, sigh.

I have been looking for a way to watch the AMC webisode Dead in the Water (the back story of the USS Pennsylvania in Fear the Walking Dead) but from the trailer I suspect it will deeply disappoint me… pardon the pun…

….much as Yakamoz S-245has been disappointing me. I am about halfway through season one and it has been throughly predictable and annoying. Maybe the Turkish Navy works like that but yet again I feel like I am watching a story about the military told by civilians who do not understand military culture.

If you are unaware of this show, it is a Turkish spin off TV series from Into the Night, a Belgian TV series about a solar radiation involved apocalypse….

Which was flawed but watchable. It had some interesting concepts but failed to live up to its potential in my opinion. I can see it making a decent setting for a wargame with some minor modifications.

And there we have it, another long blog post. Probably too long for most folks so my thanks and respect for those of you who got this far. I would love to hear your thoughts on what I have written.

PS We backed the Reaper Bones 6 Kickstarter, did you?