Tuesday, January 4, 2011

2011 Kickoff and Winter Painting Queue


A new year is upon us and the projects continue on unabated. I'm padding my queue a bit here by keeping it relatively small, but in my eyes certainly manageable. There's lots of other projects waiting in the wings, so let's get these wrapped up first.


1. Hordes of the Things Orc Army

I didn't realize until I finished the first leg of this 6mm army that I have a *lot* of stands of Orcs, especially for a game that requires only about a third of what I have. This gives me a *lot* of options to mix and match with and it also gives me two completely separate armies that can fight head to head at the same time. I came close to painting a different skintone on the next batch, but I think I'll just keep them the same and have one gigantically huge fantasy Orc army.


2. Some Sci-Fi Terrain

There's no excuse to not paint these. They've been built and sprayed with primer for some time. I intended these to be terrain pieces for 15mm battles, but they'll scale further up or down the spectrum just fine. I've got to get in more sci-fi games this year anyway, so why not crank out some terrain to go along with it?


3. Prehistorics

The last of the projects on the block are my prehistorics; cavemen and the Ice Age era critters for them to hunt and eat. I'm looking forward to this one, not that I'm not the others, but the figs look very cool and it's a genre that interests me a great deal as well.

That's it, just three projects in the queue to start out with. Don't be fooled though, there's a lot of stuff to paint up here and I don't see myself blazing through it either. The terrain should come together easily enough, but the stands of Orcs will end up being tedious if for no other reason than sheer numbers, and the prehistoric plateful of cavemen is deceptive, there's really a lot more there than you'd think waiting for the brush. Once these three projects are all wrapped up and complete there's more on the horizon, there's always more, without much planning ahead here's a quick list off the top of my head for the future:

Incoming on the H.U.D.
  1. Space Orks (AE Bounty and 5150)
  2. Pulp Figures (Strange Aeons, Chaos in..., etc.)
  3. 15mm Sci-Fi Troops
  4. Sons of Minos Space Marines
  5. Basing and Finishing Touches on the Karman
  6. Continue Work on 15mm FoW Brits
  7. Deathwatch Marines
  8. Exo-suits for 28mm Mercs
  9. Tanks for the same 28mm Mercs
  10. Dino-Marines!
  11. Lord of the Rings Project
  12. A Dwarf PC figure for our FATE RPG
  13. Another Spring Garden
  14. Imperial Guard troopers
  15. Sci-fi Greatcoat troopers
  16. A trio of Dark Angel rhinos
If there was one thing last year taught me it was that I need repetitive games under my belt with the same system. To this end, I need to try some different sci-fi rules well-suited to 15mm to find "the one". I'm looking for games that will handle single mini to a little larger than skirmish level. Having a solo option in there is also a big plus in my book.

Speaking of solo, as much as it pains me to say, I'll be looking at 5150 again. I've had an idea for some time of a pair of Space Ork mercenaries plying their trade across the galaxy and it's be fun to make into a serial here.

This will also be the year my daughter graduates from boardgames to some true tabletop gaming, I'm thinking we start with the Song of Blade and Heroes for some linked games. So overall 2011 has got some ambition to it already and it's just begun. Some of the items listed on the HUD are for projects, but others are just to get done because they've languished too long incomplete. I'm not saying I'll get to them all in 2011, but they're not going away, so whether it's this year, next year, or even further down the road...they'll always be there.

10 comments:

  1. So, there is still someone else who plays Horde of the things.

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  2. The terrain is outstanding! I'm looking forward to seeing you paint up your prehistorics.

    I'm rooting for Sid the Sloth, Manny the Mammoth and Deigo the saber tooth tiger!

    Those models are very characterful!

    I've my eyes on that horned ogre amongst your orc horde!

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  3. @John: We love Hordes of the Things around here! We did a big double-sized rumble not too long ago: http://miksminis.blogspot.com/2010/09/hordes-of-things-four-army-clash.html If I can get these guys painted I may suggest a mini-campaign for the group.

    @Bartender: That horned ogre is going to act as my army's god! It's funny you mentioned the Ice Age characters, I'm going to paint up the smilodon to match Diego's color scheme.

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  4. DINO MARINES! How can that possibly be bad?

    By the way, you have seen the Dino Riders in SPAAAAAACE blog, right? Great spot for some ideas.

    P.S. Are those "space terrain" antennas made from Lego?

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  5. Great stuff! I just did some sample force rosters and stat layouts for Gut Check! And also started the enemy actions engine from scratch. I will upload them in the morning. The system will work fine without hexes if you don't feel like upsetting your family ;)

    I'm planning a narrative campaign system based on the Mythic engine, which is top notch if you haven't checked it out.

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  6. @WH39K: An astute eye you have! I thought I'd sneak those guys in there, yes, DINO MARINES! These were some conversions I did a long time ago...before the blog even. They'll get their due. Dino Riders in Space blog huh? I'm on it! And yes, I used some Legos in the terrain, astute kudos #2 for you!

    @Spacejacker: I've got the rules downloaded, they look great, and I've already contacted my sister-in-law for the hexes to boot! Seriously! I'm checking out Mythic as we speak, thanks for the tip.

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  7. http://hiveminionshobbyblog.blogspot.com/ is the link. Great stuff on that blog, and all dino-related!

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  8. Sounds like this is going to be a fun year, looking forward to reading some great posts about everything!

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  9. That's a lot of cool projects coming up this year, I'm excited to see how these first few turn out. It will be neat to see the terrain with some of your 15mm guys around it once you've finished painting them. I'm also really curious to find out more about what you have in mind regarding the pair of Space Ork mercenaries. Have a great year, dude!

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  10. Thanks Padre! The 'two Orks' project is something I've been thinking of for quite a while. I guess I need to move them up in the queue, you can't have adventures without the adventurers themselves!

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