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West Wind is currently running a KS for some Weird WWII mechs, which means I'm currently obsessing a bit about WWII mechs...but I don't currently own any. But I do have one of their tanks from their Berlin or Bust WWII line, the PzKpfw IV H with side plates. (For those not in the know on WWII German tanks, a group I include myself in, but did some googling, that's really it's name, short for Panzerkampfwagen). Not really sure why I picked up this one, other than I wanted a tank of some sort.......a year or 2 ago.... Let's see what's in the package. Ok, a lot of pieces. I recognize a gun....and tracks, and a turret. And what are apparently side plates....and a commander...well, half a commander.... After looking at a few pictures it seems all the straight bits and angled bits are bracing for the side plates. Some of those other bits, might take some searching to identify. So, having never done a tank, or anything approaching an accurate historic military anything, I'm hoping for some suggestions on how to proceed, what some of the bits are, colour schemes, etc. And while I do have an air brush, it is currently not set up (as my new painting room isn't set up for it yet) and I'm not really comfortable using it yet anyway...... So, painting it could be interesting.

Needing a bit of a break from painting West Wind's massive Tiger Mecha (and hoping to work on all the camo for all the German vehicles at once) I've decided to work on the 3 German Panzer Mechs from West Wind's Kickstarter. Here we have, from left to right, the Stug Mech, the Logi Flamm Jotun, and the standard Jotun. As you can see, these are still some pretty big chunks of resin. The castings on these new Panzer Mechs are super clean, crisp and smooth. Quite lovely. So after way too much base coating with the Tiger, I've found all the bits for the air brush and started practicing to get the mix and pressures ok for at least base coating. I have some old VOID resin scatter terrain that I'd primed the last time I started playing with the air brush (I've got a couple more pieces with a base coat in blue somewhere). Grabbed the green from the late german paint set from Scale 75 (it has a very similar consistency to the dark yellow I'll be using for base coating), messed with the thickness a bunch and eventually got a base coat down. To me it seems to have come out ok. Thoughts? Tomorrow I'll hopefully get some prep done on one of the Mechs.

Yet another German war machine (in case you were wondering, yes I also have Russian, British, US and Japanese stuff, I'm just doing all the German at once so I can paint them all at once). This unusual creation came out of the recent Panzermech Kickstarter by West Wind. A giant War Wheel. Should be a pretty quick and easy assembly to get it ready for priming. All I've done so far is washed the resin.

I'm going to be running Savage Rifts some in the new year (at least until everyone gets tired of either 1) dying, or 2) being indestructible, or 3) wants to go play some 5e. For those that don't know, Rifts is Palladium Games "everything and the kitchen sink" game setting; magic, psionics, sci-fi, monsters, giant robots, dragons, aliens... you name it. Its actually the game I started out my RPG journey on, many, many years ago. So when Pinnacle decided to Kickstarter a Savage Worlds version of Rifts, I had to pledge. Since we had an open time (one game ended, our other one is on break due to renovations) I figured we could try it out. Palladium has some older Rifts minis, and I got some of them ages ago. I'm planning to paint up some of those as needed. I'm very reluctant to buy any new ones from them (until I get phase 2 Robotech figs, or the world ends in some apocalypse, whichever comes first (I'm guessing the apocalypse)) so I'm also looking for other alternatives (also, the Rifts minis are pretty dated, small compared to the current scale, and even then the scale seems to fluctuate between figs). Suggestions are welcome. Some of what I'll be assembling/painting are proxies. I've seen nothing in 28mm that looks much like a UAR-1 Enforcer, but I have a nice big stompy Weird War 2 mecha from West Wind that will be at least (scale) 20 ft tall. I've got a couple of old VOID mechs that should get some paint on them. And starting out I've got some Reaper Cyber-Reavers I ordered aas part of the 12 Days of Christmas promotion. These will be painted up as Coalition Skelebots. Just cleaning them up an removing mold lines so far. Haven't decided yet if I'm just going to put them on the slottas with a little putty or find some resin bases. They are just mooks so keeping it simple would make sense, but they are also easily posed so could take advantage of some interesting bases. Bases I'd need to find, in boxes......hmmmm.

As mentioned elsewhere, I'm running some Savage Rifts, so I'm in need of a bunch of Big Stompy Robots. Now while I don't have any Rifts specific ones (mostly because as far as I know they have never been made), I do like me some Big Stompy Robots. As we're playing using 28 mm figs, that ruled out CAV, Robotech, etc. But, as luck would have it, do have some others. So the first one I'm building is West Wind's SOR-G03, the Tiger Mecha. I recently received this as an add-on from their Panzermech Kickstarter. When I ordered it I didn't really realize quite how big it actually is. This thing is massive!! This is where I'm at so far. Just glued the lower torso to the base. There will be some gap filling to do around the feet, but that's not bad, its just dirt and rubble so should be easy to add to. The turret is all prepped and I've been prepping the many metal pieces (the ones on the paper are ready, the stuff on the mat is for the next session). I haven't done much resin (not to say I don't own lots, just none of it is done ). I'm tempted to magnetize the center pivot, so the turret could rotate. A couple issues with that though: 1) I need to find my magnets, 2) I got my magnets for Robotech (6mm scale) so I'm not sure I have anything big enough, 3) I've never done magnets with resin, 4) I've never done magnets with that much surface contact, so don't know what wear on the paint would be like. Thoughts? Paint scheme will be using the late war German paint colours from Scale 75, as I got those most of a year ago for the panzer I was going to do during the actual Panzermech kickstarter (and which is still sitting on top of my desk in a baggy). Secrets of the Third Reich takes place in 49 (with the war having not ended) so that seems appropriate. I'm not planning on using an airbrush (since I still haven't learned to use mine...sigh, or even have it set up currently). So we will see how it goes. At least it is smaller than Khanjira.

This time, we have a themed group. I wanted to added some more members to my Arabian Nights themed forces, with intent to use them for RPG encounters and a Frostgrave warband. Last time it was mostly Reaper's "Legends of the Sands" boxed set, this time it's a variety of sources. The group: "Nabin, Desert Ranger" by Reaper: "Rasia, Bladedancer" by Reaper: "Watchers of Karna" from GW's LotR line: "Revolting Peasant" by West Wind Wargames Foundry: "Corsairs of Umbar" from GW's LotR line: And unrelated to the theme except for being found in the frozen city of Frostgrave, an Ice Toad from a D&D Giant Frog:

Whew, wasn't sure I was going to get this done in time for my August RPChallenge. After doing a bunch of Sci-Fi BSRs I had a craving for something a little more old timey. I've had a box of vehicles for Empire of the Dead sitting there since the kickstarter, so though now was the time to try one. Having never painted a carriage before, or painted a horse before (unless you count mutated goblin steads, I did do a unit of Ugu's Cavalry for Clan War once) I went with the "easiest" one, with only 2 wheels and one horse. Now when I started I knew there was a driver, but I didn't realize there were passengers in the carriage when I was estimating how long it would take.... Anyway, it turned out better than I expected, and final assembly wasn't quite the nightmare I was worrying it would be. So I'm happy. WIP here.

The source of my recent Noble Knight impulse spree, I'd been looking to complete a set of Arabian Nights style adventurers for encounters and skirmish games such as Frostgrave. Reaper's "Legends of the Sands" boxed set seemed perfect, and Noble Knight had it both in stock and on sale. A perfect time. You may notice the set is incomplete; I already had the Jafar type sorcerer painted from a solo purchase, didn't care much for one of the Warlord pieces, and grew frustrated with the Assassin and set him aside. There's also a few Thugs who come as back-up from West Wind...they'd been in the collection for years and fit the theme. The party as a whole: The Sheik: The Garishly Garbed Guard: The Colossus: The Pirate: The Wise Man: The Thief of Thieves: The Princess: The trio of Thugs, via West Wind:

So, for many moons, and mostly during my "Reign of Winter" campaign, I had been looking for a kit of basic stereotypical witches. The West Wind/Old Glory/Ghost kit "Story Book Hags and Witches" seemed the best fit, however, very few merchants had them in stock in the USA. Someone pointed me toward Noble Knight's recent sale, and I found the blister still in stock! Surprisingly, it was a coven of four! I had always assumed witches came in three, even in inventory. So, to start, we have the Coven as a whole: A Hag pointing the group towards mayhem: The grunt(ilda) bearing spell ingredients: A cauldron plus victim, useful for so many adventures: A broomrider bearing a familiar: And the fourth, another witch taking to the sky:

My exchange partner for the 2015 Fall Exchange was Tarsemina. Steampunk was the first thing on her list, and something I quite like myself, so from there it was just a matter of picking a Reaper fig that spoke to me. This figure is awesome, although she needs a real name, something besides, "Mad Scientist (female)" . As a proper mad scientist on the dangerous streets of London (I've been readying the background book for Infamy lately...) I thought she needs some companions. The dog is an Infernium Hound from West Wind's Empire of the Dead line. And her adorable "porter" is Stonehaven's Scrapbot (one of my favorite figs, which may be why I have so many...). The base is a 50mm cobblestone resin base, also from West Wind's EotD line.

In between all the minis come from Kickstarter, I managed to get some work done on pieces already in the collection. First up we have some more historically accurate Barbarians; Vikings from Wargames Foundry.