Nerk's Wargaming blog

One thing I greatly enjoy doing is buying old models and restoring them - maybe that's a bit of a pretentious thing to declare an old model in need of restoration, when it is simply a product of this time. I think people may agree with me more here though.

This fella is Nazdreg, from 1997. Late 2nd edition Warhammer 40k was his last stomping ground. No paint on him, just what looks like a severely degraded primer layer.

It took a few attempts to get rid of all the primer but undiluted simple green did the trick when hours of acetone did nothing.

I ended up cutting the base off because of how aggressive I was with using acetone at the start. I want to say he was on the wrong base as well but I don't really have a way to prove it. I couldn't find a damn thing about what his original base size was.

I picked up a spare bulk base I had laying around - 28mm I believe? - and put some combat cork on it. I separated the cork so I could slot him in between the two pieces, which would make removal easier later if necessary. Some texture paste and a random skull finish his model. Now, I used super glue to assemble him and I did not pin the arms to the body. If he does ever come undone I'm busting out the jb weld and making it a permanent bond.

I did not have any delusions of grandeur, that I would do very well. I was there to roll dice and meet new people, and hopefully come out of it feeling like I accomplished something. I do not feel like I was able to do that, however.

At the start of the tournament we were notified that our 18 man roster was now 17, as someone had to drop out due to family matters. Perfectly reasonable, life happens. As a result, someone would have to take a bye round, where they would be granted a small amount of points for free but would then be ineligible to earn extra points at the end.

Round 1, I was matched with someone I face somewhat semi-regularly. He decimated my list for a variety of reasons - I placed my objective markers in an area where he could hide units behind a wall to deny me points, and then death tunnel me if I tried to deny his victory points. In the end I did not get a single victory point that round.

Because I lost horribly the tournament forced me to take the bye round for the second round. I did not get to play battletech, which was the reason I went there, and instead sat in a chair for an hour and a half waiting for the final round. I walked around for a bit but people were busy playing their matches, and I did not want to interrupt them or disrupt their flow. The bye round only grants 5 VP and people were scoring 10-15 per round, which did not bode well for me.

The final round came and went without event. It did not go well for me again. My rankings would be dead last. The TO went down the list from first to last, and not hearing my name at all until the very last spot felt like a punch to the stomach. As he called out peoples names, a few said "thank god I didn't come in last!" to laughter from everyone else. Another person said "Yeah, and I only started two months ago!" to their top-5 victory.

Prizes were a first come, first serve basis, and the only two things left at the end was a 500pc puzzle, and a salvage box. I chose the salvage box. The TO tried to give me $10 randomly and out of the blue, and I declined it because of how sudden it was and how overwhelmed I felt.

Well technically today. It's past midnight now. The tournament is in nine hours and will run about nine hours itself. I'm excited, nervous, and maybe a tad anxious too. I'm going to be meeting a lot of new people, and perhaps make a lot of first impressions with them.

I've struggled with wargaming in the past. If I don't feel like I've given it my all, then a loss feels bitter, hollow. I feel like I'm an idiot for not understanding the general and specific concepts of the game. I feel like a loser who can't even win a silly, meaningless board game. It can get to me.

Tomorrow is a prime opportunity to put my best foot forward and have some true fun, and hopefully connect with people. Because that's honestly one of the reasons we do this hobby, right?

I also made some quick truck proxies for the game if we end up rolling the escort mission. Not a terribly fun mission. Made in Tinkercad in like five minutes, I find their generic cutout nature oddly pleasing.

Sometimes it’s a good thing that wargames require a lot of models because I could never realistically improve if I only had to paint five models, tops.

I’m prepping for a battletech tournament soon and I have my list done. I hope to start getting it painted tonight, and I have some real nice ideas for the paint schemes. More coming soon about that.

Perhaps too many. It's very easy to get into a wargame, but to commit? Decidedly difficult. I have a rather nasty habit of going in halves on starter sets and walking away with enough to get going.

Tonight's painting was done of the Nehekara Nightmares from blood bowl. Finished up this fella.

There’s almost a certain art to it, to convey that this is a living creature - even us humans aren;t a singular skin ton but are rather varied across our own bodies. Even with the darkest skin or palest skin possible, reds, purples, greens, yellows, and blues all hint, tint, and blend across our bodies. Red is the color of warmth, of life, and so even in an orcs skin there must be some sort of red.

My first test is the nob leader of the Ork Kommandos. The white primed model was sprayed from the bottom in a technique known as reverse zenithal with Emperors Children, a very punchy darker pink from Warhammer Paints, and then a matte white was sprayed from above to help re-create some gradients.

Then, I used a green speed paint to tint it all. Speed paints are unique in that they really let a lot of the under color show through, and thus colors like pink and red get enhanced - yellow also snaps beautifully this way when pink is used as the base coat. Mind you, this is only the first step, setting up the complex tones so I can then go over it to rebuild better highlights.

Overall I’m not displeased with the result, however I am finding it lacking to my satisfaction. My next test will involve a dark brown-red, close to black red, and a bright ochre yellow from above. With a more deep green speed paint, this might produce better results. You can see this type of color scheme in action with the most recent Vince vinturella ork skin video., from where I got the idea in the first place.

In celebration of Warhammer 40ks 11th edition dropping I decided to buy some orks- I have been getting into one page rules as well and I think the green skin is fun to paint.

As practice, I've begun test painting my Kruleboyz as well.

Visited my local Hobby town USA and the owner does 2nd hand model sales. I saw a zip log bag marked "Kommandos Recast" for 30 bucks, and I decided to buy it.

Resin is a terrible material to work with, I will say that. I'm not terribly pleased with the first priming layer as well. I think something might be up with my Vallejo primer.

I'm hoping the process fixes it.

I painted up this Devastator in the color scheme of one such blog that I found, as a tribute to them. It was nice to be reminded that we all have so much more in common than we sometimes think. And that we all have loved ones that we care about deeply, who are no longer with us.

The green is a mix of Army Painter Dark angel green blended with a bright jade. The purple is army painter alien purple mixed up to coven purple.

My milliput sculpting skills arent that great, but between this and the Vulpes, I'm getting some good work in.

Right, story time. The Vulpes.

Something about metal miniatures feels right, like cold drinks on a hot day or a warm blanket in the dead of winter. The weight gives the model a sense of authority that plastic doesn't provide, like as if you're holding something that truly was shrunk down. Ironwind Metals is the place for metal Battletech, and I overall love it. A lot of the stuff there is ancient though, but since about 2015 a lot more modern sculpts have arisen. During one of my purchasing hinges I picked up the Vulpes, only to find that it was not cast very well.

I learned the power of milliput that day, and the final result was pretty darn good if I say so.

In other news, I've worked out a deal to acquire the ork half of the Warhammer 40k 11th edition box. It will be a lot of fun! I think I've only ever done two games of 40k before switching to Age of Sigmar but hey. Can always try again!

Big models are really fun. In the Magic the Gathering psych profiles, this would make me a Timmy - big models, big damage, big effects. And yet one will find that Timmy style wargaming doesn't tend to exist well at all - the Sons of Behemat from Age of Sigmar tends to perform poorly because having four large giants means you miss out on scoring opportunities. In battletech, the Ares is incredibly slow and stacked with optional rules that no one really uses.

At least they're large in my heart.

In other news I had an Alpha Strike match two days ago. It was more learning experience - my Clan Sea Fox star was noticeably slower than the highly refitted Hunchbacks and Linebackers. By sheer firepower I managed to get a victory, but barely. Speed has a quality all its own, apparently. It does dishearten me a little though; the more optimized a wargame is, the more it tends to be uniform and bland. Too samey.

The Urbanmech LAM (Land Air Mech) config. Apocryphal as hell but you don't need to be canon to be an inspiration.

I hated the plastic flight stand that it came with so I quickly Jerry rigged this exhaust plume and fdm printed it. Surprisingly the quality wasn't terrible, very usable. If I was more patient I could have slathered it in uv cure resin and let it cure in the sunlight for a few hours to smooth it out more.

I'm currently preparing for a Battletech tournament in July. My first one ever, in fact, for any wargame.

I'm equal parts nervous and excited, I think.

I'll be posting some of my work in progress and final piece models here for that. Today, it was work on an Epsilon Galaxy Jade Falcon Highlander IIc. I just need to base it and varnish it for it to be finished.