BONES III - The Search for Mr Bones - Closes Saturday 7/25

This 18 day Kickstarter from Reaper closes down tomorrow (Saturday 7/25). The penultimate piece that has been discussed the Not Tiamat or Tianot was shown off a couple of days ago. Now known as Ma'aldrakar this five headed monster is truly a monster. It dwarfs both Kaladrax (the bone dragon from BONES I) and Dragons Don't Share II (one of two big bad monsters in BONES II). This is truly a monstrous piece and its priced at $60 as an add on option. While some people seem to be upset with that price it was mentioned that retail its probably going to be between $120 - $160. Which at a minimum makes it half price. This stretch goal kicks in at 2.25 million dollars and it looks like they should be able to hit that goal and produce this monstrosity. Really one GM doesn't need a 5 headed dragon sitting on the shelf. It should really help keep the players in line!

Note Sir Forscale down in the lower right corner/ That should give you an idea of how big this thing is. Maal also makes an appearance in at least one of the videos so take a moment and check out all the cool stuff.

BONES III; The Search for Mr Bones

Reboot the Suit - The Smithsonian's first Kickstarter

So here is a Kickstarter near and dear to my heart. The Smithsonian needs funds to restore Neal Armstrong's spacesuit for display in time for the 50th anniversary of the moon landing. Its one of those momentous events that you remember exactly where you were and what you were doing when it happened. This needs your support.

"I think we are going to the moon because it's in the nature of human beings to face challenges. It's by the nature of his deep inner soul...
We're required to do these things just as Salmon swim upstream." Neil Armstrong

Check out the Kickstarter link and pledge away! Reboot the Suit

A 28mm AWI Care Package from Fife and Drum

I was going through the TMP forum last week and der Alte Fritz had a post showing off some new armed civilian miniatures from the Minden Seven Years War line he stocks along with his own Fife and Drum miniatures. He was offering a deal for militia set #1 featuring the 5 Minden minis along with his own Militia as a package deal. I have wanted to check out Fife and Drum minis and getting a selection from both lines seemed like a good way to go so I sent him and email and, unexpectedly, the minis arrived today. Now that's some seriously prompt service!

I had mentioned that I was just breaking into the period so he also sent me some samples of Fife and Drum British and American infantry and cavalry. Also in the box was a pack of his Spirit of 1776 miniatures.

I'm seriously impressed. I have seen pictures on his website and on the table but there is nothing like seeing a quality miniature in your hand. I had some plastic Perry and Wargame Factory plastic boxes (unbuilt) at my desk and I pulled them out to compare them all. The Fife and Drum matches up very nicely with the Perry Miniature plastics and are a bit short compared to the Wargame Factory plastics. I don't really plan on mixing miniatures within units but its nice to know that you can.

I think I'll clean these up and get some primer on them before hockey tonight. Shouldn't take much time to clean them up, the castings are very clean, very nice. I'll definitely be adding some more Fife and Drum miniatures to my AWI collection!

Minden Miniatures Militia from their Seven Years War range

Fife and Drum Militia

British Samples, 

American Samples

Spirit of 1776, some assembly required

Book Review - Painting Wargame Tanks

I'm always on the look out for new painting books. I was going to pick this one up based on a short review on another blog (and I don't remember which one now, and it might have been a youtube video) so when I needed some new pigments I went with Ammo (yet another Mig Jimenez company) so I could pick up the book as part of a combined book/pigment deal.

The book, 90 pages of painting goodness

The paint set I grabbed as part of the combo. There are three other sets that I am likely to go ahead and pickup; Early War and DAK German, Mid War German and Late War German

I was going wait and do a review until after I had finished my Tank Destroyer Company but that has come to a complete halt until I either find my US decals or I breakdown and order more. Since the initial steps were going well I figured a review didn't really need to wait.

Painting Wargame Tanks is authored by Ruben Torregrosa and Mig Jimenez (although I expect most of it was written by Ruben). Its broken up into three sections; materials, basic method and advanced method. The advanced method accounts for about 3/4 of the book. Fair warning this book is a big advertisement for Ammo products, everything in the book can be acquired from a different companies though so don't feel like you have to use Ammo products to get these results. I'm using them to paint the Tank Destroyer Company because I wanted to try them out, but if you already have your own stash of materials feel free to use them. The one thing I did find slightly irritating is that they don't even mention which company's models they are using. My guess is mostly Battlefront and Plastic Soldier company. There is definitely a bias towards the plastic kits which would lean towards these two companies.

The materials sections goes over the different types of paints used (both acrylic and enamel) as well as a basic introduction to the airbrush. Use of the airbrush is heavily featured in this book and does a reasonable job a describing some of the more advanced techniques that you might use it for. If you are new to the use of pigments these are described here as well. This section is pretty brief but there is good information here.

The book then dives into the basic painting method, which introduces a couple of techniques that you aren't likely to find on most wargame tanks; streaking and dusting with pigments. While Battlefront introduced pigments into their line a number of years ago I don't think the use really caught on with the gaming community. This book does a much better job of explaining how to use them. In the basic "way"  they paint a M4A1 Sherman, an M5 Stuart and a PzKfw VG Panther. For each vehicle they go through a step by step approach\ which really does cover everything although the descriptions of what they are doing are a bit brief and the pictures are a bit small. It does a good job of capturing what is being done, how it should be applied and what material is being used. There are a couple of small gaps but nothing that can't be figured out. The section ends with some final tips for finishing off your vehicles. You can stop here, the additional techniques are more than enough to make your tanks and other armored vehicles stand out on the table. All of the techniques are applicable to any vehicle whether its a jeep or a panther.

The meat of the book is in the advanced "way" section, which makes up the bulk of the book. The emphasis here is decidedly on German vehicles but it doesn't take a lot of intuition to be able to apply them to another other nationality's equipment. In this section they cover the following; E100 Jagdpanther, PzKfw V, PzKfw IV, PzKfw III, SdKfz 251 (could be an A, B or C), T34 and a PzKfw VIE Tiger I. As they go through the step by step process all of the basic information is still present, they don't skip any steps assuming that you know it now. I like this as it gives a full road map going from point A to point B. The first airbrush technique used is modulation, which is varying the base color of different panels on the vehicle to provide an initial base for shadows and highlights. They also introduce masking for doing hard edged camouflage (both with masking tape and putty). This process continues through the section by adding techniques like chipping and the application of mud. For the most part quite well done although, like the basic section, there are a few gaps that you might have to puzzle through.

Overall I"m quite pleased with this book. The steps and materials are clearly defined and how you apply them is reasonably explained and understandable. While they didn't introduced any techniques that were new to me it was nice to have everything consolidated into a single book for reference. There were a couple of things that annoyed me. Not giving credit to the manufacturers of the models themselves (which I actually find somewhat unusual) and a lack of description in some places where actual modeling took place. For instance the PzKfw III went through some additional modifications and it would have been nice if they had gone into some more detail there as that is the kind of thing that I enjoy doing.

I think this is an excellent reference book and I would recommend it to anyone that is looking to take a step up when they are painting their vehicles.

Reaper Miniatures - BONES III - The Sledgehammer

And a fascinating twist on the Reaper BONES III Kickstarter as they just hit their $1,220,000 stretch goal. Up to this point the emphasis has really been fantasy, with a couple of exceptions like the Black Corsairs (now that's some powered armor). This newly revealed stretch goal is fascinating departure from what we have seen to this point. Sculpted by Victoria Lamb and Jake Schneider for Victoria Miniatures under license the "Sledgehammer" may attract quite a crowd of Sci/Fi aficionados especially those fond of the Imperial Guard from GW. I think I'll be in for at least one and maybe more depending on what the final Kickstarter price is. We will know when they hit 1,310,000 million dollars!

The Sledgehammer, might even be able to use this for WWI!

I really like the looks of this powered armor. I might be in for this as well.