Gaming: DBA & HoTT Wednesday Night

I invited Blake to a last minute game night and after a bit of postponing-rescheduling, we actually found ourselves sitting at a table rolling dice. We started off playing some 15mm DBA and then played a game of 28mm Hordes of the Things. I only managed to take some pictures of the DBA game in its first few bounds, but never got any later pics taken (perhaps due to the euphoria of actually playing, I guess).

Blake's Early Bedouin Camel (Cav), including the General stand in the middle. A variety of manufacturers.

The first skirmish on the flank - the Samurai Ashigaru (Aux) charge up the steep hill to dislodge the Bedouin tribesmen (Aux). The Samurai are from Alec's 10mm Pendraken army.

The Bedouin Camel join the fray, led by the army General, but are, in turn, met by the Samurai (Cav), led by their General. 

Though the tribesmen held the hill for several bounds and all the mounted pushed and shoved, the Camel's lowered combat score against mounted eventually worked to the Samurai's favor, and the Bedouin would withdraw from their losses. 

In the 28mm game, by Bug Army took on one of Blake's Empire armies, the Maybe Middenheim army. This Empire army is verrrrry shooty - lots of archer and crossbow Shooters, plus two cannon Artillery. I allowed the cannon to scare my 2 Behemoths into uselessness, and managed to forget (yet again) that Artillery quick kill Heroes (my Bug Hero was also my General). That was my first stand and gave him the win, but we kept playing, me with a -2 to my commands. Nothing ever worked for me and Blake's skillful use of his crossbowmen stand meant that by the time I found the courage to send the Behemoths to try to save my game, it was all over for me, 12 AP lost (incl Gen) to 2AP. 

We really enjoyed throwing some dice and having to look up rules again since, due to both of our busy schedules, we hadn't played in a long while. Looking forward to another Spontaneous Game Night soon!

Thanksgiving Break 2015

A few days off for Thanksgiving allowed for some hobby time.

I managed to get some primer on a commission I am working on – a unit of 10 Goblin Spider Riders, ready to put paint to them.

Ten primed Goblin Spider Riders for a commission.

In an effort to (finally) finish my Han Chinese DBA army, I put some time in on the three bases of Spearmen, replacing the "spaghetti" lead spears with brass wire ones that I shaped using the wife's jewelry anvil.

Telephone-pole-thick, spaghetti-flimsy original lead spears.

Spear removed.

Two units of the Spear with brass wire replacement weapons. Nice and sturdy.

Bushido Terrain

I also started work on a Bushido terrain piece, testing out a new method, a GW ink called Nihilakh Oxide, to simulate bronze oxidation – a patina or veridigris – on a bronze statue. So far, its working out nice on my test piece. The steps I take to the finished piece are detailed below.

I searched eBay for some appropriate Bushido type statuary, searching for both Japanese and Chinese dragons, and happened to come across this neat little set of six in a red resin finish. They looked nice on their own but I intended to repaint them both as bronze statuary using the GW ink, and some stone statuary (think "Great Stone Dragon" from Mulan!). But to actually own the set became an ordeal...

Six red resin dragons in their flimsy, vacu-formed packaging.

I won the auction and only paid less than $12 including shipping. However, the crappy plastic vacu-formed holder and flimsy cardboard box was placed in a bubble-pack envelope and mailed. Needless to say, the package arrived and all but one piece had been broken.

All but one dragon busted and broken!

Heads and Tails!

Not an issue for what I was gonna use them for, the repair would be covered up by my repaint, but I felt the shoddy packaging deserved a discount so I contacted the seller about it. She gave me a full refund so ended up getting them at no charge! Woot! Next I repaired the pieces with super glue and left off the fiddly little bits, accepting that these stones dragons could have been chipped and broken in a war torn Bushido setting.

Fixed.

Fixed, but showing small broken scales for "Mushu" effect.

For my test piece of the bronze finish, I chose the sculpt that had a duplicate in the set (just in case I "messed it up"), and primed it black. It's a neat little turtle dragon with a little turtle on its back.

The duplicate piece primed black with automobile primer.

Next, came a dry brush with a bronze craft paint to pick out all the details. The color I used was DecoArt Dazzling Metallics Rich Espresso Craft Paint.

Dry brushed.

I'll post more details later...