2010 Year in Review

Here it is, another end of the year post to throw on the pile! There's nothing more to say really, after looking at the numbers, 2010 was a pretty amazing year in the hobby department, and it blew 2009's numbers well out of the water. There's really beginning to be a real sense of community here too, and a lot of familiar faces show up quite frequently. This just makes me want to do more and keep that vibe alive if you will. Really, if it wasn't for you the readers, I'd have given this thing up long ago, so thanks!


Games Played: 135

This number is up by a solid thirty-three games over last year. The Boardgame Geek widget has tracked every single one of these games too, when you remember to log your games this can be a very cool way to tally things. Hopefully this link to my 2010 games will work! Looking at the numbers I was able to play a game a little less than every three days for the entire year. Remember I only count boardgames, roleplaying games, and tabletop miniature games, I do not count video games in this total!

It looks like the excellent card game Dominion dominated the boardgame category with a whopping 22 plays, Carcassonne coming in a pretty distant second with just 9 plays.

On the roleplaying front Mouseguard and With Great Power surprisingly both came in first place tied at four games each. I have a feeling next year will have a solid leader in this area. If all goes well we will be kicking off a brand new fantasy campaign based on our cooperatively created world of Sarterra, so that should get the lion's share of the rpg category.

Tabletop wargames saw another tie for first place, oddly enough with four games apiece as well; Flames of War and Gutshot go to the fore. Who would've thought that? My little wacky sci-fi and fantasy world dominated by Cowboys and WWII? As neat as this is, it's also a stark reminder that sometimes a little consistency goes a long way, especially in a rules-heavy area like tabletop wargaming. Just four games for any ruleset isn't enough to cut it in my book and makes for the kind of games where you're focusing just as much on looking up the rules as you are playing the game. Hopefully we'll get a title in here that's at least got double the number of plays under its belt for next year.


Miniatures Painted: 201

How many times have I said, "I hate painting..." and the like? I'm thinking maybe I actually like painting a little bit, or I'm a total sadist. Last year I painted 121 figs and I thought I was Über-man or something for such a feat, this year has a good 80 more models than that!

Tracking this number throughout the year is very helpful, and it really does help give me that little extra push when I need it, especially near the end here when I saw I was just ten models from 200 total. Practice never hurt anyone and I've gotta believe that with another 200 figs under my belt, I'm painting better today than I was a year ago. Keeping myself honest with posts like the Summer Queue and Spring Queue also goes a long way to keep me on the right track. Well I can go ahead and tell you now, you won't see a 200-fig year out of me in 2011!


Miniatures Bought: 71

Comparing my miniatures painted to those I bought, my painting efficiency rating is in the neighborhood of around 350%! Minis bought is an easy one to keep in check when you're broke, haha! Having said that though, I still couldn't tell you what all the purchases were. Mind you, the super sale on Karman inflated this number by another 21 models quite recently!

I don't know where this number will be next year either. Working on projects and the like is a good thing, and I get such a feeling of accomplishment too I would like to continue that trend. This means there should be less buying of the 'new shiny' and more working on the models I have in-house and in storage. Best laid plans, right?


So, I got all sappy in the beginning of the post, but indulge me once more. This whole year of success is in large part to y'all out there, the readers who I've thoroughly enjoyed chatting with through comments and the like post in and post out. Thanks go to all my local friends too, who without them these numbers would be a fraction of what they are. Lastly, I have to thank my family, of which this obviously wouldn't even be possible without.

So, gird your loins for a rousing and festive new year, until then!

The Acorn Knight of Bal Timorea

I can safely say that without the Knights of Bal Timorea project headed up by John over at Santa Cruz Warhammer my knight here wouldn't exist! As it stands, he does, and he rounds out the 201st model here for 2010 to boot. The idea is great, get a bunch of people from all over to contribute a single knight, put all the knights together in a huge unit, then randomly pick one of the people who participated to get the whole unit, sounds awesome! This latest post has many of the entries so far in partial stages of completion.


Green is my favorite color, so I knew I wanted this to play a large part in the model. Also I've been reading a lot of Martin's Song of Fire and Ice series (currently on the third book) and there's tons of knights in those pages. One of the (former) kings had this great rack of deer antlers on his helmet too, I thought this was cool and went that route. So with all the green, all the brown, and the antlers, I thought my knight was a little woodsy, and since I wanted there to be no doubt on his honor, I gave the horse a pure white tabbard.


The heraldry was tricky, and there were a lot of people researching their own personal family heraldic colors for inspiration. For me I went again to the Fire and Ice books with their abundance of knights. Basically there was a shield design for anything imaginable; a flayed man, a white sunburst, a fish, a stag, a wolf, a kraken, beehives, scorpions, a comet, a laurel of flowers, a lion, an onion, three buckets...and so on.

That's right, I said "three buckets" as a heraldric shield design. If someone can have an onion or three buckets as their design I thought why not an acorn? It keeps with the woodsy theme and it "should" be easy to paint. Free-handing period gives me trouble, and you would think a couple of acorns wouldn't get the better of me, but they did. I had to stop finally because the paint was getting pretty thick where I kept having to start over with a blank slate.


So there you have it, this fig was fun to paint up but I don't think I want to do another one anytime soon! I now have a lot more respect for the fantasy players out there with multiple units of these mounted knights too. He'll be shipped off to his new home, and take up his rightful place among his rank-and-file brothers, ready to trample and lance the foe!

Star Wars Smugglers and Scoundrels

Finally some non-blurry pics of some of the last figs off the bench for the year. I've included the Star Frontiers Sathar in here because as pointed out, he scales well, and fits the 'style' of both the Star Wars universe and the West End Games classic sculpts.



First up are "Hoth" Han and Chewbacca...'nuff said


Next up are the Sathar and a Mon Calamari. I painted the Mon Cal in traditional "Home One" uniform, just 'cause it takes me back to my action figure days with Admiral Ackbar. The closeup pic here leaves his eyes a little something to be desired, so I went back in post-photo and tried to fix them a bit.

He and the Sathar will be another smuggler duo like Han and Chewie, with the space-suited big guy acting as the first mate, and the refined Mon Cal and the captain. They'll have an organic designed light freighter in the Mon Cal style.


I dropped the Sathar on the concrete right before I sprayed them with Dull Cote. You can see the paint threatening to crack off his eye lens. I fixed this by licking the area and smoothing it down with my finger. It tasted like Dull Cote, which is gross to say the least.

I'm also trying out a new camera here and don't have the controls quite down yet. I may default to "old faithful" when it comes to minis, because I know how to get it to take good pictures of minis, this fancy new one escapes me.

So that's it, out of "the last ten", I am now finished! I've exceeded my goal for figs painted this year by a mile and can rest for the rest of 2010. You know, I was thinking though, it's one thing to say I painted 200 figs for the year. It's another thing to say I painted OVER 200 figs for the year, even if "over" just means one more fig. I'll see what I can do, check back tomorrow!

Pharaoh's Quest: 2 of 2

This is part two of my Lego Pharaoh's Quest set reviews. If you haven't checked that post out, go ahead. The long and short of it is that Lego is putting out their own line of pulp/horror goodness. This isn't a licensed product like the Prince of Persia sets either, these new sets are all Lego and really pack a punch. This is good news because we won't have to worry about licensing issues in the long run, these sets can go on for a while.


The second set in the series to be reviewed is #7307 Flying Mummy Attack. Yes, you heard right, flying freakin' mummies! You get three mini-figs in the set, plus a really cool bi-plane and new accessories to boot. Lego hasn't skimped on the details this go-round either. Almost all the mini-figs have printed torsos and printed legs, but furthermore, all of the torsos I've seen so far are double-sided as well. Also, the mummies have "two-faced" heads depending on your mood; crazy menacing, or cyclopean chic.


The mummies are the same as set #7306, but their gear sets them apart by a mile. Looking at the box I thought these were same headdresses we've seen all along, but painted anew. Nope, these are completed new headdresses without the "pony tail" in the back, making these much easier to fit with capes and certain armor pieces. Not to mention these look cool with the Horus-styled paint jobs.

The new helmets aren't the coolest things though, it's the wings. These are hard plastic, neck-hole/peg backpack style wings, and you get two of them. These look great, are multi-colored and printed on both sides.

You can also see in here our hero, Jake Raines. He's got a nicely printed torso which is a leather flight jacket and as you can see, he's got his biplane symbol on the back. He also comes with not one, but two of the blocky, drum fed machine guns. These are really parts for the biplane itself, but they're too good to pass up in you character's hands. Other than a few Batman sets, these have been kind of scarce to get a hold of.


This Egyptian obelisk is very cool and makes a great addition to the tabletop. My one complaint however is a trend I don't think we'll see Lego reversing anytime soon and that it's not printed bricks you see here, but stickers. Johnny Thunder never put up with stickers! Other than this, which I won't begrudge them too much, it's a nice terrain piece.


The biplane itself is a very cool model. Let's face it, compared to the original Thunder biplanes, this one is amazing! I thought the engine could've enjoyed a little more detail, but the twin machine guns up top more than make up for it. It did have a very lame "sky hook" attachment underneath (so you could fly by the obelisk and snatch the diamond) but I didn't bother with it...and neither should you!


So the intended action in set #7307 is pretty cool. You've got a hunk of treasure atop an obelisk. Swooping in to snatch it away you got a daring pulp hero pilot, but wait, freakin' flying mummies are here too! They want the diamond and at the bidding of an yet-to-be-revealed master, they aim to steal it first. Barrel rolls and machine gun chatter fill the skies above the desert as biplane and flying mummy dance their aerial tango.

These Actually Are the Droids You're Looking For...

The six Star Frontiers robots are finished! This is a blurry pic from my dumb-phone, but consider it a teaser for now. I like how these turned out and I'd like to give them their due with a real post. I just wanted to get these posted here before the new year so they'd "officially" count for the 2010 totals. You can see the Star Frontiers Sathar in the background, he (she?) is basically done as well, I just need to base him (her?).

I'll be honest, in the beginning I was just going to do a silver drybrush on all these guys and call it a day, shooting for quantity over quality. There was such an overwhelmingly positive response from you guys though I was inspired to do more. I broke the six 'bot group into three pairs and painted each pair with a specific "theme" in mind.


Hoth Han and Chewie painted up much faster than I thought as well. I tell you, these old West End Games sculpts are really great. The Han Solo fig actually looks like Harrison Ford, and has plenty of detail, not bad for "true" 25mm scale. Chewbacca was a good sculpt as well, but it seems to me kind of hard to screw up a Wookie sculpt.

Another blurry pic, sorry, consider it another teaser pic. I wanted to get these guys in under the wire for 2010 as well. No time for more, I've still got two figs to paint up and an 'end of the year' post to whip up as well. Enjoy!

Pharaoh's Quest: 1 of 2

A couple of Lego Pharaoh's Quest sets made their way into my stocking this year. The adults of the family all draw names, and I'm terribly easy to shop for, just imagine whatever a ten year old kid would want, and this thirty six year old kid will be content!

These new sets are great, just great, and really put the Johnny Thunder sets that came out over a decade ago to shame in a lot of ways. This says a lot, 'cause Señor Thunder was the bomb, and he got say things like, "Bring the THUNDER!" Okay, he didn't actually say that, but he could've if he wanted to.

Johnny Thunder started out very pulpy, tomb raiding in the Egyptian deserts. He moved on to South American jungles, and eventually found himself in the Himalayan Mountains. It wasn't until near the end when Johnny and friends started to fight unexplained and supernatural foes. This sounds cool huh? It's all Lego!

These new sets have a named hero in every one, and there's an even grittier / pulpier vibe going on. Plus, right off the bat this newest incarnation goes more of the style of the Mummy movie franchise, and less of a classic Indiana Jones route.


First up we have set #7306 Golden Staff Guardians. For a ten dollar set you get a very nice collection of mini-figs and accessories, and let's be honest, it's the mini-figs we do this for, right? Essentially all this set really boils down to is a mini-fig collection builder.


The Guardians themselves are awesome, and very menacing. New accessories include the wicked-looking khopesh swords, and very nice looking scarab shields too. Of course there is also the Golden Staff itself, another new piece. The head-dresses aren't new, but this the first time I've seen them in black. Then there's the figs themselves, with printed torsos (front and back), double-sided heads, and printed legs too. The red glowing eyes tell it all, these aren't husks lying around in a sarcophagus, but undead (sentient?) guardians wielding weapons they know how to put to good use!

Two different faces on the same head, and two sides to the torso are a nice touch


Mac McCloud is pure pulp hero. He's got the five o'clock shadow, oil stained tank top, suspenders, cocky smirk, and even a bit of an injury on his face. Another nice touch is that his torso is also double-sided. His motorcycle is awesome as well, it's two separate frames and comes equipped with a rifle and a bundle of dynamite. The rifle has been around, as has the helmet and goggles he wears. The dynamite isn't new, but unless you picked up the right Power Miner sets, you probably don't have it.

I like the dynamite, but a shovel would've made more sense...maybe both


There you have it, just ten bucks and it's loaded to the wrappings with pulp fighting horror goodness. The little altar you build with the set is pretty solid too, it's a small terrain piece, but it's not just slapped together. The human could pull off many different roles in many genres, and the mummies are pretty versatile too. Of course a lot of the equipment works just as well on a starship or in the 1930's, ancients, or whatever in between.

Ten More for 2010

Here they are, as the title says, these are the last (planned) figs for the 2010 fiscal painting year. After posting my Hordes of the Things Orc Army the other day (which I'm still pretty proud of by the way) and I realized I had logged 190 painted figs for the year. That leaves me with just ten more to go to hit 200. I didn't set out this year with a particular goal in mind, but I do like nice, round numbers, and 200 is just such a number, but what to paint?

World War II tanks are pretty easy, but I don't have any built right now. I just built those Sons of Minos space marines, but they're pretty detailed and I'd like to do them right. There's still 2/3 of my HotT army just sitting around, but I'll give them a rest for now. Looking through my minis cold storage I ran across some vintage gems, that just happen to be single-mold and should paint up quick and easy.


Back during all of my Fall-In! coverage I had posted pic with my loot, including an unopened Star Frontiers box. This is NOT the box, but I said in that post I'd follow-up and never did. The first minis I ever got were the same as the figs in that unopened box. That was around 1982, and might explain why I lean towards sci-fi instead of fantasy; unlike most I did not cut my teeth on Dungeons and Dragons, but Star Frontiers instead.

Well that box of player characters wasn't the only one, I also have this box of Star Frontiers Robots, and although it is opened it is intact (unlike my other original box). These sculpts are great and don't even feel that old-school, plus, they're robots so they should be a breeze to paint up, even if I go semi-elaborate.

Here's the back of the box with its contents, and their future bases


Well if my goal is to paint up ten figs, the Star Frontiers Robot box only get me a little over halfway. Poking around some more I found one of the original Star Frontiers figs from the OTHER box, a space-suited Sathar! I didn't think about it, but this also means I'm about to paint up one of the first figs I ever owned. Add this one to my first painted fig ever.

Alongside the Sathar are a few characters that should be familiar; Han Solo, Chewbacca, and a Mon Calamari. Mon Calamari George, really? You named them directly after squid, you didn't even try to disguise it? These are figs from West End Games' Star Wars line out of the late 1980's. Compared to the venerable Star Frontiers figs these guys feel downright modern!

This "crew" has a nice feel to it, kind of like those non-canon, classic pulp Han Solo novels. You've got Han and Chewie, doing their thing, plus some yet-named character Mon Cal, and a big ole Sathar in a space suit. The Mon Cal and the Sathar could be their own smuggler duo that had to team up with the crew of the Falcon to tackle some mutual goal. Maybe it's to fight all those Star Frontiers robots?


So there you have, once I get these painted, I should hit 200 figs on the year. It's not a done deal, I have to actually paint them, but I feel confident going into to it. As you can see from the bottoms of the bases here it's not every day you get to paint up 27 year old miniatures either! The fact that I'm the first owner of these dates me incredibly, but it's all good. So enjoy, and get ready for the new year.

Happy Festivus!

Long Overdue Orcs

It's one thing to have a bunch of miniatures in a box, or still in the package in storage somewhere, we all have those...some in vast numbers. It's another thing entirely to have a project sitting around on the launch pad, and by project I mean it has a definite purpose (as soon as it's painted, you're using it), and it's been sorted, glued on bases, even primed. All it's doing is waiting for you to paint it.

Thanks to the recent migration of Andy's archives over to a new blog format, all his older material is now in a user-friendly format. Reading back through the archives, I found this post, dated a solid five years ago! That's me, I'm the unnamed "buddy", and that's how long this project has been sitting around. Well, five years is long enough, and with the new year around the corner, I certainly didn't want to make it six!


Here are the latest minis to come out of the workshop here at Mik's Minis. Also, 6mm may also be my new favorite scale! I was able to crank out a full-sized Hordes of the Things army in just two evenings. For those keeping score, I'm counting the whole base as a single miniature in the 'minis painted' category on the right. If you counted the actual figures however this army consists of 58 figures overall, which sounds about like a regular 28mm army.

Hordes of the Things is a great game, and we've been playing off and on for about five years I'm guessing, though probably longer in reality. The rules play fast, are easy to learn but will challenge you in the long run to tactically and proficiently use all of the different types of units, of which there are plenty. You can also play it in any scale, so you can use your existing armies if you'd like, especially to give it a test run. The best thing is, the rules are free! If for nothing else, they make for a surprisingly entertaining read. There's a good site that sums up many of HotT's facets here at the Meadhall, sadly its predecessor, the Stronghold is no longer.

Above you've got a blurry photo from my not-too-smart phone, but here in the next day or two, as the holidays allow, I'll get a proper post or two up detailing my latest army. Five years is a long time, but maybe what my army was doing was waiting for a proper setting to maraud in, like the one we now have in Sarterra.

More Sons of Minos WIP

The Sons of Minos aren't dead yet! I know I have a new project pop up it seems every week, but to my credit I eventually finish them. Mind you, "eventually" is oft-times measured in increments of years, but I do finish them! I got tired of waiting around for the money to put proper bases (some fancy resin jobs) on these guys so over the weekend I glued them down on my standby; metal washers.

While I was at it I finished up the fiddly bits and got on arms, heads, and shoulder pads. I do want to point out the awesome, custom carved logo shoulder pads most of these guys are sporting. Thanks again to John over at Santa Cruz Warhammer! I held off on putting on a lot of the packs. I'm going for more of a near-renegade feel on these guys, hence all of the Space Wolf and Chaos parts, so to further that I'm going to put packs and Catachan-style rucksacks on a lot of them. My two flamer troopers will sport Cadian fuel tank packs.


Here's the horde: Roughly two tactical squads of ten troops, and four character models. Two of the characters are tooled up to be some pretty major players, the other two were an after-thought whipped up as solo elites. I also am sitting on ten vintage metal terminators that are loaded with character that will be rolled into this army as well.

Looking through the Space Wolf codex it pretty much offers me the flexibility and the variety that I'm looking for. Having said that though, I honestly don't know how many truly legitimate games of 40k are in my future. That's not saying we won't be using 40k figures in a 40k setting, battling 40k battles...just not with 40k rules, you know?


These are the two I whipped up with leftover parts, they'll act as Wolf Guard Battle Leaders, Love Wolves, or the like. I know those horned helmets are terribly Chaos-like, but hopefully after I paint them up, and those Space Wolf and Dark Angel elements are more prominent, these guys will just look like rockin' Space Marines with rockin' helmets.

AE Bounty: Extras

The above figure is what I concocted to act as the VIP in the first game of AE Bounty. Really he's more like a courier in this case, and apparently he's onto the fact that he is the priority target in the scenario! I've built for him an extra large deck plate stand, he's got two wounds and is regular experience level, so those are on there too. The only equipment he has is his hand-truck and a high-tech safe containing a sci-fi MacGuffin.


Here he is in action, run VIP Courier, RUN!


These two are from the cutting room floor. They were going to be part of my Pirate Crew, but the crew composition wasn't the clearest about what you could and couldn't take. Due to some compulsory Crewman choices, these two guys got the axe.

The human in the Pith helmet was going to be tooled up as a First Mate sniper. His super-huge sniper rifle was suitably tricked out and the fluff was going to state it was actually once a wing-cannon off of a starfighter.

The other guy was going to be of the Limax race and he was going to fill the role of the heavy gunner, or officially the canoneer. His big gun was equally cool I thought, and it even sported an articulated body harness and weapon mount.


Closeup of the weapon harness and body mount

So there you have it. After posts of the Bounty Hunter crew, the large Pirate crew, and now this stuff there's really only one thing left to do. Run it!

The Crew of the Swollen Goat; AE Bounty Pirates

No horizon is obscured by the clouds. Settlements make nary a sound. And there were black birds singing and fish floating on the sea. While the bells of the buoys all rang in harmony.

Bury your treasure, burn your crops,
Black water rising and it ain't gonna stop.

The governor he been long gone, anchor dropped on his front lawn. Build a keep and dig a moat, the return of the Swollen Goat. Can you hear the fife and drums, barnacles barking at the sun. Ain't no chance, so don't you try, now everybody got to die. -Clutch

Large Pirate Crew
Options: dropped one green unit, one unit xp level upgrade
Dirty Trick: Stand Your Ground


El Sobrante, Arges Veteran Captain
M2, RC+4, CC5, A6, S3, DR5, W3
Gear: Slugthrower rifle, armored suit, sword
Skills: Blooded Warrior, Beserk, Unstoppable


Crash Wingo, Human Veteran Quartermaster
M3, RC+4, CC3, A4, S3, DR4, W2
Gear: Slugthrower long rifle, cybernetic arms and eyes
Skills: Hunter (Human), Steady Hands, Nightvision, Aim


Naos Corsairs, Regular
Skills: Hunter (Phact), Sure-footed


M3, RC+5, CC3, A2(4), S3, DR4, W1
Heavy Melee Weapon and Personal Energy Screen

M3, RC+5, CC3, A3, S3, DR4, W1
Equipment: Pike and Light Armored Suit

M3, RC+5, CC3, A2, S3, DR4, W1
Mono-wire edged sword


Human Crewman, Green
M3, RC+5, CC2, A2, S2, DR3, W1
Gear: Electrolaser pistols, random gear choice at game start
Skills: Apathetic


Chort Crewman, Green
M4, RC+5, CC2, A2, S2, DR3, W1
Gear: Electrolaser pistols, random gear choice at game start
Skills: Craven, Small Stature