Habit Forming

One of the aspects of this hobby I enjoy the most is making use of miniatures in ways they weren't intended. Call it what you will, kitbashing, converting, proxying, 'cheaphammer', I've never been keen on the limiting concept of having to use miniatures from a specific range to play a game.

It's one of the things that draws me to miniature agnostic systems like 7TV, Five Parsecs From Home or, in this case, Trench Crusade.

I've not played Trench Crusade, I didn't back it's massively successful Kickstarter, I've only recently paid any attention to it and I don't know if I'll ever play it.

However, I had come across enough videos of people kitbashing miniatures for it to learn that whilst there is an official line of 3d printed miniatures, the game actively encourages people to use what they want.

This I like.

A few days ago, apropos of nothing, I began to consider how I could throw together a warband from my backlog that fit reasonably into the aesthetic of WW1 meets the Crusades with an unhealthy dollop of Hellraiser.

A quick scout through the bits box turned up the closest thing I had to WW1 miniatures in a sprue of Bolt Action desert British I got on the cover of a magazine along with a few other bits and pieces left over from my Soviet army.

Although the light machine guns and men in shorts weren't appropriate, bolt action rifles and submachine guns are directly transferable assuming that an opponent wasn't going to get prissy about specific weapons in a game where the gates of Hell have opened.

I then added these to some spare Frostgrave soldiers and wizards and accidentally started an all female warband. The addition of an ancient (and small) metal paladin and some metal ninja and gas mask heads got me to a place where I could create models to represent a group of warrior nuns fighting on behalf New Antioch, essentially an analog to the Crusader kingdoms.

As the aesthetic of Trench Crusade is heavily influenced by 'grimdark' and the work of John Blanche, I decided to try a couple of new things when it came to painting.

The first was to begin with a zenithal highlight, something the internet raves about, but I didn't really see the benefit. Perhaps it's due to me using black as my main colour or I just did it wrong, but it didn't seem to have an effect and just made elements like faces too dark for my taste and so I ended up falling back on my usual approach.

The second thing I tried was to go for a 'Blanchitsu' style, using a limited palette and lots of grime and dirt. Again, I'm not sure how successful I've been as I opted to keep the wimples a pure white (rather than cream) as I feel this is the element that sells the 'nuns with guns' vibe I'm going for.

However, I am quite pleased with what I've managed to throw together, and should the opportunity arise to play Trench Crusade (whose rules are free to download) I can.

My headcanon for the warband is that the armoured warrior (the Lieutenant) is a Joan of Arc figure (explaining her small size) whose visions have lead the sisters from her convent (a Trench Cleric, a Sniper Priest, 2 Shocktroopers and 3 Yeomen) to the front line.

Will I do more for Trench Crusade? Possibly, if the mood takes me. I have a bit of silly idea to use some Heroquest models to create some of Hell's minions in the Court of the Seven-Headed Serpent. However, silly doesn't seem to fit with Trench Crusade, so maybe not.

However, I have used up some miniatures that were languishing in the backlog and at least tried to step out of my comfort zone. On top of that, the rest of the desert British sprue has been added to my WW2 bits box, and so no longer counts as needing to be painted (besides, I've used almost all the arms)...those are the rules that I've just made up.

Acquired: -98
Painted: 143
Lead Mountain: 411

We're Gonna Need A Bigger Gondola

As I continue to explore 3d printing, I decided that I needed to learn about cutting and resizing miniatures.

Therefore, I went fishing in the extremely deep waters of Cults3d to find a file that would allows me to do this.

Cue the music...

Der-dum. Der-dum. Derdum-derdum, derdum-derdum, der-ner-NER!

As I'd had said me success with the Cultist, and as Cthulhu-themed miniatures are ten a penny, I went hunting for something which might work forthe Rashaar in Carnevale.

This is not driven by any desire to not buy miniatures from TTCombat, which I think are excellent, but more because individual the models that I print are easier to drop into a skirmish game than something that requires units. Additionally, the more slender style of Carnevale miniatures means that most models that will print on FDM, won't really fit in, so this won't be a habit.

This particular file surfaced when I was doing a search for 'Deep One' (I stumbled across the Cultist when searching 'Dagon'), and immediately struck me as a suitable stand in for the Karcharos shark-monster from Carnevale.

The file suited my purpose for several reasons: firstly, I could see a use for it; secondly, it has an integrated base that I would need to cut off the print; and thirdly, it's title 'Huge Deep One' wasn't kidding and it would need resizing to fit on a 50mm base.

The cutting and resizing turned out to be really easy, and after watching a couple of short tutorial videos, I was able to get the file ready to print relatively quickly.

For some reason, when I started the print, there was a problem with bed adhesion and the feet were deformed within the first 10 minutes. I stopped the print, cleaned the bed (assuming I'd got grease on there some how) and tried again.

This time the print got 20 minutes in and one of the feet broke away from the bed. I tried re-slicing the the model to see if I could get more supports around the feet, I did, but it failed again.

I even tried re-orienting the body to have the feet not on the bed, but again no success. He kept going under, no matter how many barrels I put in him.

I then gave up for a while. Originally my plan was to include this model in the same post as the Cultist, but I just couldn't seem to get a successful print.

After leaving it a couple of days and painting some Skaven to calm down, I decided to try one more time, and try to add manual supports to keep the feet in place.

I didn't actually do this as I stumbled upon the Brim Ears button, which allowed me to automatically add small circles to the extremities and therefore increase the bed adhesion.

I set it to print and waited for it to fail...but it didn't.

Smile you sonofabitch!

The print was a success!

Yes, there are layer lines, but these are genuinely much less noticeable in real life than in the photos. There's scarring where the supports were attached, but this is largely invisible due to the pose, but I do need to learn how to manually support to reduce this.

The sculpt itself is perfectly fine, if a little frog-like. To be honest it's sort of appropriate for the Rashaar. Also, it was free, so I'm not complaining. I probably could have made it a little bigger and have it still fit on the base, but that was hard to predict.

Painting was done with contrast paints: Apothecary White, Basilicanum Grey, Gulliman Flesh and Skeleton Horde, before the back was over brushed with Eshin Grey and lightly dry brushed with Administratum Grey.

Acquired: -92 (I've got rid of some ugly Heroclix and Wizkids models I really won't use.)

Painted: 135

Lead Mountain: 425

Leader of the Pack

Following on from my recent posts on 3d printing, I feel it only fair to mention that there has been a lot of time to kill whilst waiting for the magic to happen.

This has given me plenty of time to churn through some neglected projects, such as my Age of Sigmar Skaven.

I don't play Age of Sigmar. I've never played Age of Sigmar. I don't even have any firm plans to play Age of Sigmar in the future.

However, last year I decided to try to make an Age of Sigmar force using only the models that I've had sitting unloved for about thirty years. Initially I focused on trying to emulate the Spearhead force and so I've managed to complete a Grey Seer, two units of 10 Clanrats and three Rat Ogres.

However, in the absence of the other models needed to complete the Spearhead, I've decided to switch focus and aim at just completing a 1000 point force using whatever I have available.

First up is this Master Moulder made from an old metal Clan Moulder Packmaster which I think I originally bought to use as a Blood Bowl head coach.

To make him stand out from the crowd amongst the tide of vermin, I've not only based him on an appropriately larger base and painted him in Clan Moulder colours, but I've also based him with a rodent of unusual size, which I believe came with him when he was first bought.

The rat (rous?) is too big to use alongside other Giant Rat models I own, but definitely suits the idea of being a Clan Moulder bred aberration.

As we're moving away from the Spearhead rules to the main army list, I also need to increase both Clanrats units from 10 to 20.

As before, these are Advanced Heroquest monopost plastic Skaven and were painted in exactly the same slapdash manner as the rest, focusing on contrast paints and washes.

I still have another 10 to do for the second units, but it's not a task that's too onerous and I will probably have plenty more time to kill waiting for other things to print.

Acquired: -78
Painted: 134
Lead Mountain: 440

Cult Initiation

I've always thought of 3d printing as a bit of a cult. Online discussion of prices inevitably drawing out the intoned mantra of, "printer goes brrr," and any skepticism expressed towards the application of printing being the best outcome in every circumstance being set upon by a teeming horde of zealots determined to shout down (and probably burn) the heretic.

And now I'm one of them.

It's clear that printing is on the rise within the hobby and there are some stunning creations appearing. Also, friends of mine were indoctrinated some time ago and I've seen what they've been able to do.

I'm not, and never have been, an early adopter, but my interest was definitely piqued at the possibilities.

However, as mentioned in my previous post, after a fair bit of research and deliberation I ruled out the option of a resin printer. Despite the fact that they are clearly the best choice for printing miniatures, the toxicity of the resin combined with the lack of proper ventilation in my workspace, made getting one a non-starter.

Which led me to looking at whether FDM printers could give me what I wanted, and it turned out that the answer was yes, with caveats.

Slower than resin printers and even the best prints being less clean than their output, the best FDM machines could get close to the quality of resin with a reduced cost and less chance of death.

It also turned out that there is a dedicated community of people online beavering away at getting the best results they could put of FDM, with most of them recommending the Bambu A1 or A1 Mini. Chief amongst these, and well worth a visit is Painted 4 Combat, who has a whole slew of videos full of advice.

After setting up my new printer and successfully getting the Gobsmasha printed, I wanted to test it's capabilities with miniatures. However, for my first test I decided to keep things simple and print something that I could still use if layer lines were visible.

Therefore I printed some troll bodies that I could use with the arms and heads I had spare from building my Mordor Troll. Not only would these be done quickly, but as the focal points would still be plastic, if detail wasn't good, I could still potentially use the models.

Therefore, I popped online to find a free file to use. I should point out the fact that the main site for this is suspiciously called Cults3d.

I told you it was a cult.

The Isengard Troll (on the right in this picture) was done with the standard 0.4mm nozzle I'd used for the Gobsmasha, and you can clearly see the layer lines. Although the plastic bits should do enough of a job to make this model passable, this clearly isn't appropriate for more detailed work.

The drummer (one the left...with the drums) was done with the 0.2mm nozzle I'd bought additional to the printer, and delivers a significantly better result. The main problem with this model is that I've stuck his arms on badly.

Both miniatures were printed with automatic tree supports which came away fairly well but need a bit of tidying up.

I next tried to print a Vault Girl miniature I'd got as part of a Humble Bundle deal of Fallout resources and discovered the limits of FDM printing.

The pose and spindly design of this miniatures caused it to snap in several places as I was removing supports, highlighting that I'd need to be careful in choosing which miniatures would work in FDM. Thin parts and extended extremities would be problematic.

What's more, I wasn't happy with the lack of detail on the Pipboy and hammer and so looked at improving my setting further.

This resulted in me downloading some specific settings for the Bambu A1 Mini from Fat Dragon Games which I tried with a different free STL of a cultist.

I chose this one as its robes gave it a more sturdy construction and it didn't have outstretched limbs. I also figured that of something went wrong with the knife, it would be easy to do a hand or weapon replacement from my bits box.

As you can see this experiment was a success.

And here he is painted up to serve as a Dagon Officiant for my Rashaar in Carnevale, and I'm really pleased with the outcome.

In truth, he's a little bit next to my other Officiant, but as that one is a woman, the size difference is excusable, also, scale in Carnevale is a bit all over the place anyway.

I was really pleased to see that facial features, fingers and even toes were picked out, producing a miniature that was easy to paint up and looks perfectly decent on the tabletop.

In terms of negatives, there are layer lines still visible in the robe, but these are exaggerated by the photograph and are barely visible in real life.

Also, although the knife survived, but in a reduced form, and I may still replace it.

Finally, the rim of the hood and the bottom of the robe are a bit chewed up. This works for the clothing of a Dagonite cultist, but would because problem on a less ragged character. However, this was mainly due to the process of support removal, a job I need to become more prrcise at.

Following this I tried something a bit more advanced and printed a Hellgate Cultist from Arbiter Miniatures, which is a free sample of their Advanced FDM range.

This uses supports more similar to those used for resin and prints the models in smaller parts. This allows for more dynamic poses and doesn't leave the same scarring as the tree supports.

This is a great model whose only flawd include the fact that printing it took much longer than my Dagonite and he's much too tall and chunky in his proportions to use in Carnevale.

Although this miniature is not quite right for me, it dies show the direction FDM miniatures are going in and suggests that significantly better results are possible.

My final experiment was looking into printing base toppers for the 30mm round lipped bases I used for Carnevale as I realised I'd run out whilst painting the Dagonite.

This allowed me to learn about resizing files as the files I found were all fractionally too big. Again, this turned out to be relatively simple thanks to some short tutorial videos made by 3d Print Dood, and although I haven't found a file which looks like the bases I used for my Guild, Rashaar and Vatican forces, the one above will serve admirably for my and hoc Strigoi miniatures, instead of the resin ones I've been buying off eBay.

All in all, my initiation into the world of 3d printing have been a success, and I've learned a lot.

Printing miniatures with FDM is not fast enough to makes printing armies viable, although I view this a a good limit on my backlog, and the quality doesn't match resin. However, the ability to print individual miniatures for a specific purpose, make use of spare sprue bits and save me money on bases are all things that will suit me.

Obviously, vehicles and terrain are also on the agenda, but I'm happy to discover that, with a bit of care in my selection of files, I can produce tabletop quality miniatures at a fraction of the cost of buying new or even second hand.

Acquired: -79

Painted: 123

Lead Mountain: 450

Gobsmacked

I've always been one for finding ways to spend less money on my miniatures: buying second hand, kitbashing, converting, using proxies, etc.

However, there is one method of getting cheaper models that I've previously largely avoided; 3d printing...

...until now!

Yep, I've gone and got myself a 3d printer (technically my birthday present) and am currently learning what it can and can't do.

I've opted to go for an FDM printer rather than a resin one for reasons of space, mess, faffing and not wanting to do permanent damage to my lungs due to lack of adequate ventilation.

The model I've gone for is the Bambu A1 Mini for a few reasons. Firstly, it's remarkably affordable; certainly when compared to other models and seems to be on offer right now. 

Secondly, it's pretty much a 'plug and play' experience and set up took me no time at all. Within less than an hour of opening the box I was printing my first doohickies: a print bed scraper (that I've not used yet due to the flexible magnetic bed plate) and a 'poop catcher' (for keeping the extruded filament from being flicked all over the floor).

Thirdly, and most importantly, my research had told me that the Bambu A1 and A1 Mini were currently the best bet for getting decent prints of miniatures from an FDM machine, something I'll go into more depth on in a future post.

However, my first goal was to print something that FDM printers are good at: big stuff. Namely, a tank.

The specific tank in question is a 'Gobsmasha' for my 40k Orks.

This tank was first featured in a issue of White Dwarf, back in the days of Rogue Trader, and was actually a model readers were given templates to scratch build out of cardboard and coffee jar lids.

I never made the model myself, but I was sorely tempted. However, our family didn't drink enough coffee for me to make the Gobsmasha before my impulse faded.

There was never an official model for the Gobsmasha in 40k, although they did turn up in Epic scale (I had four of them) and there was apparently an Armorcast resin version.

This model is an unofficial design I picked up from Cults3d and can be found here.

Printing it was remarkably simple and didn't require many supports, even on the barrel. Doing all the parts separately took the best part of a day to print and I ended up trimming the axels as I felt the wheels stuck out too far.

Painting was simple as ever with Ork contraptions. I undercoated black, dry brushed Leadbelcher all over, and blocked in the yellow before washing the whole thing in Agrax Earthshade.

I then sponged on more yellow, Averland Sunset, to brighten it up before freehanding the checker pattern on the front to give a bit of visual detail.

Finally I sponged on some weathering and picked out the rivets.

I'm delighted with the outcome. As we mainly play 5th edition 40k I'll be fielding this as a Looted Wagon upgraded with an 'Ard Case, Armour Plates and a Boomgun.

However, after al this I'm somewhat shocked at how quick and simple it was to print and paint a full vehicle for a significantly reduced cost. There is a worrying likelihood that my vehicle and terrain collection could possibly explode.

I'm trying to resist the urge to print print print, and so I've promised myself that I'll only print things I definitely want to paint up immediately. I'm also slowing things down by experimenting with printing miniatures, which is turning into a bit of an adventure.

Acquired: -81
Painted: 122
Lead Mountain: 449

'Green' Army Men

I don't know why, but I seem to have been caught by a bug of painting up models left over from truly ancient projects.

The last time I touched any US models for Flames of War was 2013. In fact, for those in the UK reading this, a measure of how long I've had these models sitting around is that the vehicles were bought from the bring and buy at Sheffield Triples, last held in 2017.

My US Army force for Flames of War was always my back up army, for when Germans aren't appropriate.

Given that main opponents when we used to play a lot were Matt and his 1 for 1 recreation of the entire US military, and Pete's 'quantity is quality' Soviet armour, the need for me to field my Americans was always somewhat reduced.

This meant that my US Armoured Company was a bit underdeveloped, containing only bog standard Sherman tanks, a platoon golf zippy little Stuarts, a cobbled together Recce platoon and, later on, some Engineers to provide at least a little infantry support.

Therefore, after playing the game for a while, I identified two main problems, the first of which being that I couldn't hold objectives with tanks.

This caused me, at some point, to pick up a platoon of Armoured Riflemen to add a bit of saying power to the army.

I suspect I was intending to pick up some Plastic Soldier Company halftracks, which were very much all the rage before Battlefront went plastic, to put them in, and I may still do this if we ever play Flames of War again.

In the intervening years I have toyed with selling them on several times, but since Flames of War changed edition, there doesn't seem to be that much of a market for the old metal miniatures and so, as they weren't taking up too much space, I've kept hold of them.

I think I've decided to paint them now because I wanted to make a dent into my backlog and, as with the 6mm ACW miniatures, smaller scales are a good way to do this quickly.

However, after undercoating them with a green spray paint, and looking back at the miniatures I'd done previously, I was reminded of just how many different shades of green and brown I used on these guys.

I was also reminded of the most likely why I didn't bother painting them a decade ago.

In short, they were a faff.

They've come out quite dark because I'm matching them to my previous paint job which involved being drenched in Agrax Earthshade, which was very much my 'thing' at the time.

The other major problem my US Armoured Company had was that being equipped only with Shermans packing 75mm guns, I really had no answer to heavy armour beyond trying to swarm them.

The obviously response was to pick up some Romulan Laser Destroyers...erm, M10 Tank Destroyers, and when I spotted these in a bring and buy, I scooped them up, despite the fact that they needed a little TLC.

I gave them new barrels from my plastic sprues and used some tank commanders and infantry cut in half to crew them. The Greyhound's MG rail/ring was fashioned from the rim of a plastic shield, and he also got an infantryman as crew. Finally, I got round the lack of driver for the Jeep by having its crew stood beside it making a call.

I'm not sure if this is a game legal set up, at least it isn't in any of my army books, but at least they're painted.

All in all, they're perfectly fine tabletop quality. Will they ever get used? We'll see. However, I have achieved the goal of taking a chunk out of the backlog.

Acquired: -82
Painted: 121
Lead Mountain: 449

Thin Blue Line

No, I wasn't expecting this either.

I've returned to a project I haven't touched for almost exactly eight years and finished off almost the last few unpainted 6mm American Civil War miniatures for my Union army.

Almost a decade ago our little gaming group got very briefly grabbed by 6mm gaming following attending the Joy of Six show in Sheffield.

We opted to dip our toes in by painting up American Civil War forces, with two of us building Union forces and two doing Confederate armies, using Bacchus Miniatures as our supplier.

At the time we played through a brief Vicksburg campaign using Black Powder rules, in which, despite starting well, Matt and I got out manoeuvred and defeated.

The campaign can be read about here and here.

I suspect that's why it's been eight years since I did anything with them.

However, I was lacking a bit of motivation yesterday and had some time on my hands, so I went with something that seemed easy.

6mm miniatures, especially in the regular uniform blue of the Union army, are incredibly easy to do.

The trick is to remember that the aren't meant to be looked at up close and so there's not much call for more than dabbing paint on in the appropriate places.

With the miniatures and bases I had left I've put together two regiments and two stands of skirmishers. The skirmishers have a couple more models on each base than the ones I've done previously and so will be good for representing regiments that have been deployed as pickets as opposed to the skirmishers put out in front of a regiment.

I still have five strips of infantry, with no command, that I'm not sure what to do with, but it was a nice change of pace and removes a healthy chunk from my backlog - I originally counted each strip as a single miniature when I started on Lead Mountain, and so this bunch qualifies at 16 miniatures.

Acquired: -84
Painted: 75
Lead Mountain: 498