Cheaphammer!!!
One gamer's guide to wargaming on a budget.
Sunday, 6 July 2025
The X-Dwarfs
Saturday, 28 June 2025
Tiny Tanks for the Tiny Tank God
It's happening again.
It goes like this:
- Someone (usually Matt or Pete) mentions a new project.
- My interest is piqued, usually through nostalgia.
- I remember that I have a small amount of models suitable for said project.
- I start a new project with nowhere near enough models already in my possession to finish it.
So, I've started an Epic Chaos army. I don't currently have anything else to paint, but I do have my printer and a few more vehicles files, but I don't trust that FDM will work with 6mm infantry, so I'm on the lookout for some second hand miniatures at a not extortionate price.
Acquired: -79
Painted: 173
Lead Mountain: 400
Sunday, 22 June 2025
Trauma Surgeon
Although the Master of Arcane Security, the leader of my Doctors starter gang for Carnevale,from the La Grazia Industrial Works, is clearly not medically trained, I'd suggest that she is a specialist in inflicting trauma by both fire and sword.
This all means that my Doctors are now ready to take to the mean streets of Venice. I'm not sure how much healing they'll be doing, but they are definitely ready to sterilise and purge.
I've really enjoyed painting this collection, which means I'm quite keen to add to them. I might raid the bits box for a proxy or two before I pick up any more official miniatures, as I do enjoy a bit of kitbashing.
Acquired: -84
Painted: 166
Lead Mountain: 399
Sunday, 15 June 2025
Doctor, Doctor!
Work on my Doctors for Carnevale continues and I think it's clear that when we get to the Ordnance Doctor and the Apprentice Doctor, we are reminded that not al PhDs are medical.
The Ordnance Doctor brings heavy ranged weaponry into a game where, so far, my collections most significant ballistic missile has been a crossbow bolt or a pistol shot.
The Spirit Cannon is not only a powerful gun, but also the Ordnance Doctor can draw on the energy of nearby madmen to make it vastly more dangerous.
Increasingly, I'm leaning into painting my Carnevale miniatures with contrast paints. I'm finding that they do a really good job with the more detailed sculpts, particularly the decorative elements.
The down side is that I'm having much more of a battle with mould release agent than usual, even though I do clean the resin. However, I've found that even contrast paint can swamp the issue if you are persistent enough.
The Apprentice Doctor is an interesting character as you can choose to give him a special ability or attack type of one of the other Doctors at the start of each game.
Obviously, with this sculpt holding a gun it makes sense for the Apprentice Doctor to imitate the Spirit Cannon (without the ability to upgrade it) or risk causing all kinds of confusion.
Again, I went with contrast paints for the most part, and I'm finding that I'm much more happy with Darkoath Flesh as a base skin tone than I've been with Gulliman Fresh previously. Also, I'm really liking Gore-Grunta Fur as a way of achieving red hair.
So the Doctors are almost done, and there's only one model to go. She's a big one though.
I'm really happy with how this game is coming together as the muted palette ties them together and the pale blues present here and there really make them pop.
Painted: 168
Lead Mountain: 391
Sunday, 8 June 2025
Electric Blue
Next up for the Doctors is the Electron Cannoneer, a somewhat more sane henchman (although the bar is low in this faction) armed with a weapon capable of sending deadly beams of electricity arcing into the enemy.
Saturday, 7 June 2025
You don't have to be mad to work here...
Returning to the mean streets of eighteenth century Venice, I'm finally bringing some of the Doctors of the Ospedale into my collection of Carnevale miniatures
Unlike with the proxied Vatican or Strigoi, I've opted to return to the official models and picked up the La Grazia Industrial Works starter gang with some birthday money.
First out of the wards are some asylum patients who have been 'repurposed' after the Doctors discovered that the mentally unstable could be used to generate eldritch energies to power their magics and fiendish technological devices.
The Voltage Bombadier is two asylum inmates strapped together to power a device that can give off blasts of explosive force surrounding them.
I'm terms of painting, I've kept things very simple, using mainly contrast paints (Darkoath Flesh, Skeleton Horde and Garaghak's Sewer) as base coats, used Leadbelcher washed with Agrax Earthshade for the metals, and then Nihilakh Oxide over white for the glowy bits.
Tuesday, 27 May 2025
Flying Visit
In another excursion to the 1980s I've finally got round to painting up my Skyfighter from V, along with my last remaining Visitor miniature from Crooked Dice.
Despite being a 3d print, I didn't actually print this myself. I picked up the STL during the Kickstarter campaign for the 7TV: 80s campaign and it was kindly printed by Matt.
I managed to lose the landing gear somewhere along the line and so I put the project on hold until I could print my own recently.
In all honesty, the print is a little rough, but given that Matt did it for free, I'm not complaining.
Therefore, when it came to painting, I kept things simple and coherent with how the ships looked in the series and decided that being less detailed will prevent the eye being drawn to the less than perfect areas.
I undercoated it in Ghoul Grey from Colourforge, sponged on matt white, before painting the windows black and freehanding the icons in red. I then gave everything a coat of gloss bc arnish because these things were shiny.
Given that this is most likely to feature as scenery, I'm happy enough with it. I've seen them used with the helicopter rules in games of 7TV, but unless I'm playing on a big board, the transport capacity is not that useful.
The final Visitor I've painted is actually a duplicate model to the one I painted as Lydia. Given that the pose and her hair are quite distinctive, I opted to do a couple of things to differentiate the two.
Firstly, I went with a slightly different colour scheme, giving her the black body armour worn by the security guards and allowing her to use the Shocktrooper profile.
Secondly, I gave her a head swap. Finding an appropriately sized head proved challenging and the best I could come up with was a Zombie Vixen head from Wargames Factory (I think these are the models that also feature in the Project Z game from Warlord Games). There is a wound on the face, but I've painted it as a torn bit of fake skin, which works well enough.
I'm not sure if I'm going to add to my Visitors. I might do another Skyfighter for scenic purposes and Crooked Dice do have Visitor Jeep with a gun mount that I've been tempted by for a long time.
However, I'm much more likely to focus my attention on the Resistance, as currently I only have four dedicated miniatures for them.
Painted: 163
Lead Mountain: 391