Path of Damnation: Damned, but not Lost

Regular readers of the blog will know that just over a year ago I sold my soul to Nurgle and set out to create a Warriors of Chaos army for Warhammer: The Old World using only models that were collected in the dim and distant past by a teenage me.

I have now put the finishing touches to that army by adding a handful of models and a command group to the Chaos Marauders, the unit I began with.

My own personal rule for this army was that it needed to fit the Oldhammer brief and only feature miniatures which were produced in the early 90s or before, and there were to be no duplicate models.

The aim was to get an army which evoked the cover image of Realms of Chaos: The Lost and the Damned).

I've drafted in every metal Chaos Warrior, Chaos Thug, Beastmen, Chaos Dwarf, Barbarian, Minotaur and monster that I could lay my hands on, supplemented with a handful of plastic miniatures from Heroquest and Warhammer Quest.

Perhaps the most recognisable model in this batch is the dynamically posed, and taller than I remembered, Warhammer Quest Barbarian.

He will take the role of unit champion, but I may need to lighten his skin at some point as I think he lacks a little definition.

Also from the boardgame department is this Zombie from Heroquest. I've come to really like this sculpt and have started to look for ways to use more of them in other projects.

Although he's joining a unit of, very much alive, Chaos Marauders, he's also a nod to the fact that the first Nurgle army list did allow units of Plague Zombies and Plague Skeletons.

I've also been drafting in a handful of Blood Bowl star players, who are very much Chaotic in nature and add a flamboyant amount of mutation to the army.

This is Dieter Hammerlash, one of a very early batch of star players, whose star card I first got from a copy of White Dwarf.

Although he could quite easily have been given a Tzeentchian flavour (he has a touch of the Pink Horror about him), I've gone for a more fleshy look and just added a weapon.

The most obvious Blood Bowl player of the bunch is also the most fitting for a Nurgle army: Bilerot Vomitflesh.

I was presented with a conundrum of how to get his very 'football' look to fit in, and so I opted to turn him into a musician, by giving him a bell ( which I think is from the Grenadier Undead Mammoth I wish I still owned) to dangle.

I also added a shield on his other arm to make him a little less sporty looking.

The final miniature and standard bearer for the unit is Slarga Fourstrike (which I've discovered the internet often, wrongly, refers to as Slarga Fourstrike - check his card).

I commited Oldhammer sacrilege and pinned the banner, which was cobbled together from my bits box, in place and left him at that.

I'm really pleased with this one.

And there we have it.

A 2000 point Warriors of Nurgle army for Warhammer: The Old World. Admittedly it's probably not very good and needs a hefty chunk of magic items to get across the points threshold, but that's pretty normal for Chaos armies.

This army has been at least 37 years in the making and I'm actually a little bit choked up to finally have the Chaos army (or at least a variation of it) that I planned so long ago.

In other news, I've printed and painted some rock formations.

They're not really exciting enough for their own post, so they're here.

Acquired: 15

Painted: 79

Lead Mountain: 698

The After-Party After-Party

Whilst I've been occupied by all things Fallout for the last month, work was suspended on my Venice gaming table project for Carnevale, despite having already printed several buildings and a significant number of street tiles.

However, the February installment of the Carnevale MyMiniFactory tribes rewards hit my inbox and included a way to get get back on track prompted me to finish off the remaining contents of the World's Faire After-Party starter set: the Patrician's.

I think.i mentioned when I painted the Doctors that I really appreciated the fact that the forces in the box fit very well with the particular flavours of both factions that I have already collected.

The Patricians in the starter set are partying nobles and their servants, much like what I already own, rather than the more military or naval options available to the faction.

The premise of the story in the starter set is that Viviana, a Barnabotti, has decided that she wants to steal a unicorn rumoured to be on display at the World's Faire. The rumours are actually a trap laid by the Doctors.

The Barnabotti model representing Viviana appears more daunting to paint than it actually is, and the miniature responded well to contrast paints, with the hardest part of painting her was all of the gold trim, even though the details are all very crisply detailed.

To help with the theft, Viviana hires an experienced Cat Burglar (nobles who steal from their peers for kicks) to lead the expedition. 

The Car Burglar is actually a Hero model, rather than a Henchman like the Barnabotti, and so is the actually leader in the scenarios in the box.

To aid her venture, Viviana has forced one of her servants to accompany her, probably to deal with the messy business of handling a unicorn.

Armed with only a poker, he will attend to his mistress' needs, no matter how bizarre.

Viviana may be deluded and irrational, but she's not stupid. The mean streets of Venicame are dangerous, and so she has acquired the services of some Hired Muscle to deal with anyone attempting to prevent the noble teaching her goal or take advantage of her being out on the streets at night.

I decided to print the Ponti di Called Medicanti partly because many of the buildings Ive received from the tribe subscription have been a little large for my Bambu A1 Mini.

Admittedly, the Ponti di Called Medicanti is also large, but it was printable in sections, although I did have to add an extra cut in the base piece.

I painted it with contrast paints and sponges for the most part, with a bit more detail on the bricks without going overboard (it is, after all, meant to be a backdrop).

I added a statue into the alcove on the steps section made from a WizKids miniature I had no plans for.

Finally I printed another two street tiles, on of which is a newer style with steps.

I'm pretty sure I now have enough to fill a 2'x2' table and so I might play out the World's Faire After-Party scenarios on it soon.

Acquired: 14

Painted: 66

Lead Mountain: 710

Dressing Appropriately

Much as I like the 3d printed model I began with, when the heroine of my new solo campaign of Fallout Wasteland Warfare picked up a damaged hazmat suit, I knew I wanted to represent this in the tabletop.

Whilst Modiphius do have a hazmat suit available in their Institute core set, having not played Fallout 4, I currently have no interest in that collecting that faction.

Fortunately, I did have an alternative solution available.

As I've mentioned previously, I've had a copy of Star Saga from Mantic Games kicking around that I'd picked up cheap a couple of years ago, and I've already painted up the terrain from to furnish my vault.

The models are a little bit chunkier than the Modiphius Fallout range, but not offensively so, and I have already stated my intention to use some of them to supplement my Fallout collection where appropriate.

I had already thought about using the lab technician models from the game as proxy Enclave Scientists, and when I picked up the damaged hazmat suit, the thought struck me that, with the right paint job, the female lab technician could also work as Elara in my campaign.

I gave the model a hand swap to give her a pistol and put a hammer head on the stick that the lab technician was holding to make it look like a recognisable weapon.

Although not massively similar to the radiation suit that turns up in Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas, the lab technician is not a million miles away from the prototype hazmat suit in Fallout 4, just with the helmet down.

There are versions of this suit that are different colours, but I definitely wanted this one to be bright yellow to at least evoke the Fallout 3 suit.

Painting was fairly straightforward. I began with a Ghoul Grey (Colour Forge's Grey Seer equivalent) undercoat and then dry brushed the model white before hitting the suit with a wash of Cassandora Yellow, which works really well as a yellow speedpaint over white. 

After tidying up where the bits I didn't want yellow, I gave them a coat of Basilicanum Grey contrast paint, which it turns out is a fantastic base for silver, which was learned when I picked out the metal bits of the suit.

A few colourful details on the belt, the weapons and the head were then finished off. I'm least happy with the face and hair, partly because Mantic models tend to have very shallow details in these areas, and so may revisit them.

Whilst I was painting her up, I added a small piece to my collection of post-apocalpyse scatter terrain, by cobbling together a few leftover bits from the Mars Attacks terrain I built for the same purpose years ago.

Here's where I need to be careful, because this is where my Lead Mountain accounting went wrong last year. The terrain pieces were not counted in my tally of unpainted miniatures, and so I need to make sure I only take one model off the Lead Mountain total, despite having painted two things.

It's exciting, isn't it?

Acquired: 6

Painted: 47

Lead Mountain: 721

Furnishing The Future

At the start of the year I revealed a massive increase in the amount of models I still had to paint. A large chunk of this number comes from the Mantic Games sci-fi dungeon crawler Star Saga, which I'd picked up for £15 at a show.

The game is fine, but I had intended to sell it on and so never counted the contents of the game until it occured to me that the terrain that came in the game might look appropriate in a Fallout vault.

And so that's what I've done with it.

The terrain is basically the contents of two of the Mantic Terrain Crates, the Sci-Fi Doors and Sci-Fi Furniture sets.

As ever, these are always a mixed bag as they are robust and well detailed, but are prone to warping which sometimes cannot be fixed with hot water, as was the case with several of these pieces.

However, the doors set is pretty good. Made from hard plastic rather than the rubbery stuff that Terrain Crates usually come in, these are 10 totally useable doors with zero issues.

To save discussing this further, most of what passes for painting on all of these models is a sprayed undercoat of silver followed by a wash of Nuln Oil. Partly this is for expediency and partly to capture the brushed steel/aluminium look from Fallout Vaults.

The tables, crates and gun racks are similarly dull in their presentation, with only a few other details being picked out.

Here's where the warping and mould issues start to kick in. The table legs were sorted out with the hot water trick, although it remains to be seen if this holds.

However, one of the gun racks has a curve in it, which I've straightened out a little, but still isn't fjat as the other one, and one if the boxes is just frankly warped in it's moulding. I've used a knife to trim it down a touch so that it just looks damaged.

I had fun with the computer screens as I was able to use white on black washed with Hexwraith Flame technical paint to create the effect of the monochrome monitors that appear in Fallout.

To be honest, it's these screens that convinced me to use this set of terrain as I knew I could create this effect easily.

The lab equipment is a bit more involved, with books, test tubes, papers and other bits and pieces to pick out. The fluid tanks were painted white and given a coat of Nihilakh Oxide technical paint, before painting this section with gloss varnish to suggest glass.

Sadly, one of the desks is really warped with the desktop sitting at an angle on the drawers and this it a mould issue rather than anything that can be fixed.

This sort of thing is the reason that I probably would avoid picking up any more Mantic Terrain Crates, especially given their price. Having got the whole game massively discounted, I don't mind. But if I'd spent £25 on the Sci-Fi Furniture set to discover three unfixable issues, I'd be somewhat annoyed.

However, I do now have a range of scatter terrain for any Vault-based shenanigans in games of Fallout Wasteland Warfare, and I'm also expecting the new Five Clones From Alpha Complex book to arrive any day, and I feel this terrain will also work well in games of Paranoia.

After painting these 36 pieces of terrain, I still have to decide what to do with the 36 other miniatures from Star Saga. Some of them might find their way into Fallout Wasteland Warfare as proxy Enclave troops, some are almost certainly destined for Alpha Complex as well, and the rest will find themselves drafted into a range of other projects as I see fit.

There is certainly some work to do.

Acquired: 6

Painted: 45

Lead Mountain: 722

Well Paid Killer

I have to admit, that despite the successes of joining the MyMiniFactory tribe for Carnevale, there are clearly miniatures that my FDM printer would struggle with.

Let's be honest, it's most of them.

This has meant that I won't be abandoning traditional methods acquiring miniatures, despite continuing to print what I can.

Given that I knew that the more delicate a miniature was, the less likely it was that I'd be able to get a half decent version printed, I've been keeping an eye out for bargains.

This led me to spotting a Rialto Assassin on eBay and I swooped in to add it to my Guild forces, which, along with the addition of the Black Lamp, are experiencing a significant step up in the quality of their membership.

Rialto Assassins are, predictably, assassin's that are based in/on/around the Rialto Bridge in Venice and have thrown their lot in with the Guild.

The model has a really characterful pose, but had a couple of issues. Firstly the small punch-dagger in his right hand had broken and needed replacing, which was a somewhat fiddly job that incurred a lot of swearing.

Secondly, the model comes stood on a gondola pole which would look stupid sticking out of the street. Therefore I removed it and went looking for an alternative item of a appropriate height. The best fit was a bag of gold, which seemed appropriate.

I'm not going to waffle about the painting. It was contrast paints with a bit highlighting and washing.

Obviously, printing continues apace with this covered well and two more street tiles, all done with the same sponging method.

I went for a heavily corroded cover for the well using Nihilakh Oxide technical paint, suggesting that the metal involved is copper.

I'm pretty certain I can now do a 2'x2' board, but I've not tested that theory and will continue to print tiles between other jobs and hope that something a bit more varied (but useful, unlike the circular tile this month) turns up in the tribe.

Acquired: -85

Painted: 530

Lead Mountain: 215

Take It To The Bridge

I've recently got hold of the December STLs for the Carnevale Tribe on MyMiniFactory and they've left me a touch confused.

There was another file for a street tiles, but it's circular. No idea how to use more than one of those. There are some pillars, but nothing for them to support.

This has meant that, for now, I've gone in a slightly different direction.

I decided that I'd have another play with printing a miniature, despite only having an FDM printer, and whilst I was printing that I would paint up the last of the four bridges I bought when I first got into Carnevale.

The character in question is a Black Lamp, mysterious figures charged by the Guild to carry enchanted lanterns that grant a degree of protection against the magic wielding factions.

Meanwhile, the bridge is the Ringhiera Bridge, a slightly more fancy affair than those I'd already painted.

I opted to try printing the Black Lamp as the sculpt did not feature a lot of extraneous detail (something FDM struggle with) as most of the model is swathed in a heavy robe.

I opted not to print the separate hand holding the lamp pole as there was no way it would print successfully, and so instead I raided the bolts box and found a hand holding a staff (from a Frostgrave wizard sprue) and a lantern and kitbashed a replacement. I also needed to replace the short blade that snapped during support removal.

Happy with my construction, I tidied up the rest of the model as well as possible so that you really have to get close to see issues and got painting.

It's pretty much all contrast paints over Ghoul Grey from Colorforge, with metallics picked out. I highlighted the skin and used Hexwraith Flame technical paint for the eldritch flame of the lantern.

All in all, I'm really pleased with how this came out and I'll be experimenting a bit more with printing some of the sturdier looking Rashaar sculpts.

The Ringhiera Bridge is a more ornate and fancy bridge and so I added more colour than the other bridges I've painted and included some good as well.

I think I'll use this near the bigger and more ornate buildings, helping to indicate a more wealthy area.

Only a little bit of progress, and as I had a bit of a splurge on Black Friday and picked up a few bits and pieces here and there, and with Christmas round the corner, I feel like I might be going a little bit backwards.

Acquired: -91

Painted: 522

Lead Mountain: 219

The Big City

It makes sense that not every part of 18th century Venice is going to be filled with ornate, brightly coloured villas. There must be some poorer areas as there are in any city at any point in history.

My latest addition to my Venice board build does something about that.

I'm working on a basis of expanding my board as I go, and for each building I print, I am printing enough street tiles for it to stand on.

Technically, I could have go away with just printing two more this week, but four gives space for people to walk and fight.

The house itself comes from a designer called Terrain4Print and is actually a free sample pack (look for 'Italian Village' on the usual platforms) of STLs which include this piece, the 'medium' house, a shed, some walls and a 'big' house.

I've made a point about the size descriptors as this is a chunky building that eats a hefty amount of filament (the mind boggles as to how much the 'big' house uses), standing 5' off the street, and allowing 6" jumps if you chain jump off the chimney pot (this can be important in Carnevale).

It's not only a large building, but there's also a noticeable scale difference between this and the Hartolia Miniatures buildings I've already done, with this building being more in scale with the Carnevale range. 

However, it is a very serviceable building and I like the chipped plaster effect and smaller, less ornate windows, giving very much the impression of a poorer residence, or even boarding house.

The difference in style actually works to my advantage in dealing with the difference in scale as it doesn't make sense for these building to be side by side, so if I keep them apart on the board.

The doors are the biggest giveaway, so the yellow house could even go next to the new building as it's doors aren't that visible. I will have to keep it apart from the red building.

I'm not sure if I'll print anything else from the pack (maybe the shed), but I suspect that the next set of additions will allow me to put together a serviceable 2'x2' table.

Acquired: -98

Painted: 518

Lead Mountain: 216

A Plague On Both Your Houses

Work on expanding my Venice set up to a useable board for Carnevale continues with the addition of a second house, more street tiles and a couple of other surprises.

This printing lark is infectious.

The second house is from the same bundle of STL files I got from Hartolia Miniatures and is very much in the same style, only it's a single unit rather than two, and printed with a separate balcony, stepped porch and roofs.

I do like this building although scale issue with it being a little small is more noticeable than with the first house as the doors (which are the most telling feature) are much more visible.

Additionally, and frankly a bit weirdly, the fit of the parts was nowhere near as good and so gluing the piece together was much more awkward.

However, the balcony is a much more accessible feature than on the first model and the pitch of the roof is less precarious for models intent on attacking from on high.

I'm taking my lead on painting from the cardboard buildings that came in the starter box to try to capture the right feel, although I've gone for more pale grey than white on the stonework.

Additionally, I've done another four street tiles for it to sit on, which is causing Venice to expand and allowed me to start to add my MDF bridges to the set up.

As I was printing all of this. I came to the end of a roll of filament, and so, not wanting to waste it, I decided to print a barrel and a crate (found on the Bambu Handy App), which came out fine.

The top of the barrel was a bit plain, and so to add some visual interest I added a rat from one of the Frostgrave sprues I have knocking about.

The rat also added to a theme, given what else I printed.

This is a Plague Doctor I gained the files for from the Carnevale MyMiniFactory tribe. I wanted to experiment with whether my FDM printer should handle these files that were clearly designed for resin, and the answer was yes...to an extent.

There is a rather messy bit on the back of the cloak under the fold, and I cut off the lower part of the cane and replaced it (in fact I came close to replacing the whole hand). Also, the jack if a face and slightly ragged look helped out, along with the mainly black colour scheme.

However, the outcome was a pleasant surprise, especially as I'd had a bit of a disappointment with my subscription to the tribe.

On the MyMiniFactory page the November download included bases, which. In the advertising, look exactly like those I've been using. Obviously I thought this would be a great way to save money.

However, it turns out that the files are for bases that look nothing like those shown and I was a touch annoyed.

And yet, learning that I should be able to print at least some of the miniatures I get files for has softened me to this disappointmen, as has learning that the big building I got files for actually fits on my build plate.

I'm going to stick with the tribe as my version of Venice grows, but I'm going to keep a close eye on whether I feel like I'm getting value for money, which probably means at least two useable steps each month.

Acquired: -106

Painted: 513

Lead Mountain: 216

Little Venice

I mentioned in my previous post that I'd made the decision to put together a proper board for Carnevale and I've been making some headway.

I've managed to put together enough terrain to fill a single 12"x12" tile and it gives an indication of just how much I'm going to need to do to fill a 3'x3' board.

Admittedly, not ever part of the board needs to be full of buildings, and I am planning for at least one tile to be open water with only jetties, piers and boats allowing passage, but I do have a job ahead of me.

First up is the building itself which is a paid for STL from a company called Hartolia Miniatures that I accessed through Cults 3d, but they are on other platforms.

This printed up really well with only a couple of minor issues: I ended up with a couple of broken pillars (you can see if you look closely) which could have been prevented if I'd added brims for stability.

 Additionally, I could probably have done with scaling the print up a touch to allow 30mm bases to stand on the balcony. Finally, the pitch of the roof is a little steep for Carnevale, but blutack and varnish will fix that.

For painting I relied on contrast and sponging. I may revisit it with a dryer sh, but I never really want the terrain to be the star, so I probably won't.

The street tiles come from the Carnevale MyMiniFactory tribe and are really functional and fast to paint.

I'm not rushing to print an paint all of the tiles that I need as I suspect some other styles and shapes will be released in time.

For now, I am going to print one building at a time and just print enough tiles to support them, meaning that I can adapt as my city grows.

Finally, I've added another proxy model to my Vatcan force, which is currently unplayable due to having too many heroes.

This is a Heroclix model of Spoiler from the Batman comics, a model which I owned three of. One got added to my Batman Miniatures Game collection, a second ended up in my Freedom Force project and this one got drafted into a Guildball proxy team.

A bit of a paintwork tidy up, a new base and a splash of purple and gold did the job of bringing her into the Vatican as a Redemptionist (a fanatical member of the ominously named Knights of Silence). She actually looks more like an Inquisitorial Agent, but I didn't have a hand crossbow to give her.

I've now started on printing my second building, which will be a touch smaller, but I'm looking forward to how this develops.

Acquired: -113

Painted: -503

Lead Mountain: 219