cianty's Tabletop Wargames Blog

Mordheim Jester

2011-09-15T19:31:00.001+02:00

The unreleased Mordheim jester I purchased a few months ago is now standing in my cabinet next to the rest of my Gierburg crew.

Beautifully painted by Roman aka jar of Massive Voodoo:

Broadsides & Boarding Parties

2011-09-11T16:32:00.000+02:00

Some time ago the out of production MB game Broadsides & Boarding Parties was mentioned on Tom's forum as a good resource for cheap ships to abuse for wargaming. So I have been observing ebay auctions since then and now my own copy of the game has arrived.

The boxes main feature - for wargamers - is surely the two ship models. Although the ships (as well as the great looking figures) are something like 15mm they can be used for 28mm gaming just as well. The scale mismatch is most obvious on the gunports which are really small, but there is quite some space on deck for 25mm bases.

Here are a few photos with one of the ships next to the Old Glory Brigantine.

The ships do need some work on the planks (the models are meant to be used with a paper overlay for gaming purposes). That aside, they are really nice complete models for some fast near-out-of-the-box gaming. I'll take some more (hopefully better) pictures once I glued the models together and added planks.

I have no idea how the game itself is but the materials alone are definately worth it if you can snatch a good deal on ebay.

So here's another addition to the Tabletop Ship Reference.

Check out Forge Quest

2011-06-08T20:44:00.000+02:00

Hi folks,

this is just a short post to pimp a blog that I think deserves more attention than it probably gets: Forge Quest. The author, Joao, is not only a cool friendly dude, he's also putting together a beautiful medieval town table that reminds me a lot of my own Gierburg efforts and serves as a great source of inspiration.
Check out the lastest post which shows off some very nice market stands and civilians - good stuff! Also you can see some photos of Ziterdes foam buildings on the blog which I haven't seen much on the internet yet.

cianty out.

Mordheim Unreleased Jester

2011-05-29T19:36:00.000+02:00

Illustration from the Mordheim rulebook

To my mind the most beautiful Mordheim figure that has never been officially released is the legless Jester. Based on one of the characterful illustrations in the Mordheim rulebook this sculpt perfectly captures the strong and unique atmosphere of the "City of the Damned", that makes the game appeal to so many players even today, years after it has been dropped by Games Workshop: A chaotically twisted environment that demands everything from the daring adventurers and which will award the brave with riches and fame but punish the weak with insanity, death or worse.

Metal jester

Jester painted by Mark Dixon

Unfortunately this is not only one of the coolest but also one of the rarest Mordheim miniatures. The figure never got passed the test cast stage and the ones in existence belong to (ex-)employees of GW. Not long ago there was a copy on ebay but I lost to a determined collector. Now thanks to Stu (fellow conspirator of the Border Town Burning project and author of the Liber Malefic) and his mysterious underground contacts I managed to get my hands on a copy of this rare figure.

I hadn't dared to dream of ever owning one of these until it popped up on ebay but when it went to another collector I quicky gave up hoping again. Now I really can't wait to see this guy painted up and join the other Gierburg jesters.

Welcome Home

2011-05-27T21:37:00.001+02:00

Rocking out to Rehab's latest album Welcome Home. Digging it big time while I'm digging out the painting tools to do some painting soon. Oh My!

CMON Annual 2009 out now

2011-04-16T12:09:00.000+02:00

The CoolMiniOrNot Annual 2009 is out now and I got my copy today. Like its predecessor, the 2008 annual, this is a beautiful hard-cover book featuring the most stunning works from the CMON website of the respective year. Since I did not get the 2008 one before I took the chance to buy both annuals as a bundle.

As the icing on the cake a piece painted by yours truly somehow found its way into the book.

Top right: The Blue Wolf Inn in the scenery section of the 2009 Annual

These books are pretty cool sources of eye candy and I definately recommend them to any miniatures enthusiast. However, I was disappointed with some of the layout and composition decisions. There a near identical photos of some miniatures, which are just unnecessarily taking up space, along with a few photos which are too dark to make good sense of them, and then there are some mind-blowing pieces I saw on CMON before, which are squeezed in there as very small pictures when they really deserved to fill entire pages. I know that filling the pages comes with a lot of tough decisions regarding what to include and which photos, what size, etc. etc. And then there's also personal preference. But I do wish that some works were represented better than they are. Still, these are very fine tomes so let's see what 2010 will bring.

Liber Malefic: Unseen library

2011-03-10T18:26:00.002+01:00

Just a quick post to recommend Stu's insightful report of the Black Library Live 2011 event: Liber Malefic: Unseen library - apropriately concluded with a Mordheim game!

Hamburger Tactica 2011

2011-02-20T22:10:00.003+01:00

After 2009 and 2010 my visit at this year's Tactica convention has been the third time in a row. Unlike last year where I only had a few hours because I was in the process of moving to Berlin, I combined the event with visiting a friend who had just moved to Hamburg. Also I met up with some of my old gaming mates and it was great to see them again.

Warning: Please excuse the horrible quality of the photos! I know they are really bad and don't do the beautiful works that were presented any justice. All they do is give you a rough idea and I will include links to other galleries of the show as I find them. Also, I try to provide you with links to galleries of the works if I know them.

Something I very much looked forward to was checking out the Freebooter Miniatures' relatively new game Freebooter's Fate. I only had a quick look at the rulebook at my local gaming store and while the book looks absolutely gorgeous, just as Werner Klocke's miniatures, I didn't know how the game would play out. What I did know already is that is uses dicelss system of cards for determining hit or miss and damage. The hit system is not really new - I know the concept from Games Workshop's Pit Fighter game, which was published in issues 1 and 3 of the short-living Fanatic Magazine (see the "Gladiators" section of my blog under "Games").
The four of us got to play the game on one of the presentation tables. We each had a crew of three models and the objective was to find our captain who was locked away somewhere on a graveyard (yeah, pirates do this kind of stuff!). The board was pretty crowded with four crews so the action started pretty quickly. While I managed to pretty much eradicate the enemy to my right the opponent to my left managed to find their captain and had the game lasted longer (we restricted it to four rounds to not go on for too long) he probably would have won.
I won't give a review of the game here as I would need more experience to get a proper in depth feel for the system. I will say though that playing without dice is a nice change - even though I saw (and still don't see) a need for it. We had a good idea of the game quickly so it definately is a fitting system for a demo/presentation game. I don't know how it will play in the long run of a campaign and how deep the system really is. So far, I have only heard good things though.

Freebooter's Fate gaming tables

Another hightlight of the show was meeting Thomas, aka "Chicken", of www.tabletop-fantasywelten.de. Until then I had only known him via the internet. He had sent me one of his scratch-built houses for me to paint (and keep!) and he presented a gorgeous Imperial city board (see gallery here).

Right next to Thomas' city there was - and this is a great tradition of the convention - another gaming table by Wolfgang: The Imperial Seaport (see gallery at Gidian-Gelände).

Like last year Geboom had his table/stall, carving plaster and selling resin cast of his works. I posted about his latest works - beautiful facades of Amsterdam houses - on my blog last year. He had casts of three facades on offer of which I happy fought one copy each.

Lastly, some more random photos of various gaming boards and miniatures. I didn't even try to cover all of the tables and stands. It is just too much. Plus there is my lacking ability of taking proper photos. Still, I did take some photos so here they are. Hopefully you'll enjoy them anyways.

Norse Army by Witchhunter

Further reading/watching:

The Return of the Great Adventure

2010-12-12T23:33:00.000+01:00

Another year is coming to an end and I thought I'd combine talking about my future plans with a retrospective and explanation of why it has been so silent around here. Prepare to leave the world of tabletop gaming in the process and enter new realms of geek gaming! Yieks.

I moved to Berlin in February/March this year so that was a huge change, leaving my established wargamers behind. However, I had a great time on a few occasions here and I hope to find the time for more gaming in the local "scene".

I finally placed a huge order and bought all buildings from Tabletop World's current range. At that time! A few months later TW announced that all of them would be discontinued and so now they are OOP. I was somewhat sad and disappointed to hear about this, but they are slowly rebuilding the range with completely re-modelled versions of the old houses. Earlier this month they released a stunning new version of the Merchant's House and it is truly a beauty (even though the roofs are not exactly my thing). Especially the interior on that model, just as with the new monstrous watch tower, are superb and I can't wait to see what they come up with next. So far, I have painted two of the buildings: the Merchant's House and Medieval Inn.

Actually I did a lot of modelling and assembling on various pieces, few of them were finished (like the gallows) and are still lying here as work-in-progress. I have started writing about them but finished posts with photos will come only later next year.

Another big thing for me was the release of the 2nd edition of the Border Town Burning supplement for Mordheim. This project had me occupied for so many years, it feels really good to finally let it go. I hope to see even more people put the rules to use or let themselves be inspired by them. Along with the announcement of the very final completion of BTB we also opened the doors to the follow-up project "Mutiny in Marienburg". You can read about that on the Liber Malefic blog. There will be lots of Mordheim goodness coming from there, so watch out for that blog if you care for Mordheim.

This brings me to the future...

I already dedicated quite a bit of time this year into creating my own pirates rules set and I definately want to continue with that next year. Aside from working on those rules I want to finish painting the last two Tabletop World buildings I have: The Forge and the huge Ruined Coaching Inn. These two pieces will require a lot of time, attention and dedication.

Speaking of dedication: The greatest and most infuential thing for me this year (remember, I am speaking hobby exclusively! ;) was the discovery of the Adventure Game Studio. This incredible piece of software lets you create adventure games, the type of classic click-and-point adventures I enjoyed in the 90's, mostly the famous LucasArts titles "Monkey Island", "Indiana Jones" 3 and 4, "Loom" and more. But this is not the moment to talk about adventure gaming, I might do so if anyone is interested in the topic?
Still, I am currently totally enjoying creating my very own adventure world and game. It's just so much fun. I have done quite a bit of work on the game already so I end this post with a bit of preview material.
I can't believe you have actually read all of this rather lengthy post so if you really did: Thank you, and let me know what you think! If you just skipped the boring words looking for eye candy: Here comes the pixel art, totally out of nowhere. Your fault. Enjoy.
Have a great holiday season and a happy new year!
See you in 2011.

An early preview video showing the stairway of a rundown London house

Captain Alatriste has arrived!

2010-10-30T12:24:00.000+02:00

A few years ago a Spanish project revolving around Captain Alatriste caught a lot of attention on the Lead Adventure Forum. Based on the novels by Spanish author Arturo Pérez-Reverte the group produced some great looking 28mm miniatures, most noticeable Alatriste himself:

After some time the project was rumoured to be dead and it seemed as if the figures would never be available. Now there are news about a re-design of the project and a deal with Zenit Miniatures. However, the best news is that some of the original miniatures are currently available on ebay - for the incredible price of 3,99 EUR (current ebay link).

Of course I didn't hesitate and immediately bought a set, which arrived only three days later!

So here comes the best part: Photos! (click to enlarge)

Here's a size comparison with a swashbuckler from Black Cat Bases and a Black Scorpion pirate (30mm):

Conclusion: Very nice miniatures for a great price (although 6 EUR shipping does hurt a bit, but they arrived quickly and savely and the overall price is still good). Now I hope that the other original miniatures, for which we have seen the lovely greens already, will turn up as well.

Border Town Burning Mordheim Supplement

2010-10-17T00:57:00.001+02:00

The 2nd edition of the Border Town Burning supplement for Mordheim is now available from the BTB website. The new edition has been corrected and updated based on the player feedback during the last 1,5 years. This is, and will be, the most up-to-date version of the book; another revision is very unlikely to happen.

Aside from the new edition, there is another big announcement: The BTB team and a few additional conspirators have moved to blogger: Check out the Liber Malefic Blog for news and updates of the follow-up project to the Border Town Burning supplement. You will find me there posting the occasional Mordheim warband or building for the all-new setting, so I hope to see you there too!

Foundry Compendium

2010-10-08T11:57:00.002+02:00

As my current wargaming endeavours are all pirate themed I am looking for as many resources I can find. I already mentioned Foundry's Scourge of the Seas book some months ago. But I am not only interested in background material but also in existing game rules. It all started with Legends of the High Seas and one book that caught my attention and that I really wanted to check out ever since its release was the Foundry Compendium. The subtitle reads: "Pirates to Darkest Africa - Rules, Campaigns, Painting Guides and Terrain-making". As promising as that sounds, it sure is a lot of stuff for a 96 page book. The articles are taken from previous publications but as I never had a subscribtion to any of the Wargaming Magazines (such as Battlegames or Wargames Illustrated) I could be sure that all the contents would be new to me. Now somewhat recently Foundry had their books on offer so I took the chance and bought the book at a nice discount price. Although I always enjoy having a gander at other periods, genres and games, my prime interest was the cutthroats parts so let's see what aspiring captains can find in this book.

These are the piratical articles from the Foundry Compendium:
Pirates in West Africa (5 pages) - A simple but full set of rules for playing a pirate game.
Any Port in a Storm (7 pages) - A Guide to creating a waterfront wargaming board.
It's Cutlasses Now, Men! (6 pages) - A Guide to scratch-building 28mm pirate ships
Pirate Personalities (2 pages) - Some tips on converting piratey miniatures.

The pirate "game" is of no use really, at least not to me as I don't enjoy this kind of superficial game rules. I understand this rules set was created for quick participation game purposes, but then why put it in a wargames book? I would rather play the free Island Mayhem pirate rules.

The next articles are by Foundry terrain guru Gary Chalk. I really enjoyed the waterfront tutorial - lots of eye candy and useful information. I like to see articles that encourage gamers to create their own terrain and scenery. Of course, I am already doing so myself coming from a skirmish game background, but I have rarely seen it done in my gaming groups and I think it's good to keep encouraging gamers.

The tutorial for scratch-building 28mm pirate ships can probably considered a classic. On various forums I have seen gamers using his plans to create their own ships. This is probably due to the fact that Foundry used to host a PDF file of the article (in its original publication form) on their website, then took it down for the release of the Compendium. I already mentioned the plans in my list of Pirate Ship Manufacturers along with links to example works. Although it is great to have the article in printed form, a PDF version of the plans would be much better when actually applying the knowledge to use. I am sure you can still find the PDFs somewhere floating around the web.

The last article deals with converting piratey themed miniatures (as if Foundry's Pirates and Swashbucklers miniatures range wasn't huge enough already). But it's not too bad as it does give some inspiration for unusual poses and it is always nice to have one's own personalised figures.

So, the conclusion? If you are only in for the pirate stuff you probably want to give this one a miss. The pirate material in this book is not really worth the money. However, if your interest is more widespread so that you enjoy the rest of the covered themes and periods, then you might want to give the book a chance. Personally, I enjoyed some of the other articles, especially as I had never concerned myself with those periods before (Romans, Aztecs) so I learned quite a bit. At the very least it is definately nice for the eye candy. If you can get it a reduced price, I would recommend it IF you are open-minded with regards to periods and themes.

_________________________

Update: By request here is a breakdown of the rest of the book:

Today will Decide! (11 pages) - Skirmish gaming with Romans by Chris Peers
The Land of El Dorado (22 pages) - by Chris Peers
The Colours of War (4 pages) - Painting Guide for Aztec miniatures
Burned with Fire and Killed With Steel (8 pages) - "Quickfire rules for Roman gladiatoral combat" by Chris Peers
In Darkest Africa (5 pages) - Full rules for Dark Africa games by Chris -well-guess-who
Painting Darkest Africa (4 pages) - Painting Guide by Mark Copplestone
In Darkest Africa (6 pages) - continued
The World of the Greeks (8 pages) - A History lesson on Greek warfare by Adrian Garbett
Painting Spartan and Athenian Armies (2 pages) - by Steve Saleh

In "Today Will Decide" Peers presents rules for playing skirmish games with Roman Centurions vs small warbands of Gauls. It's one of those "fast-paced" games I am not too interested in personally, however, I did enjoy the somewhat lenthy discussion on why skirmish gaming - playing Heroic actions of individuals - does make sense with Romans despite the widely spread idea of the Roman discipline.

The "El Dorado" article is massive and actually presents what I consider a full rules set: Army lists, point values, campaign rules - all the good stuff I expect from a full rules set. Of course, if you enjoy the "fast paced" games, then you will consider those full games too and you might even prefer those simpler sets. I just don't. I expect a minimum of depth from any rules set. Together with the cool painting guide by Ian Heath this is a very good starting point for people looking to get into wargaming in central america.

I haven't read through the Gladiator article in full but it look promising to me. It contains presents rules for proper Gladiator fighting with rules for parrying, dodging as well as "dirty tricks" such as 'stomach throw' or 'sand in the face'. And you check for "appealing to the crowd (or not...)". I have tried gladiator rules in my old group before and I am very interested in alternative gladiatoral rules sets so I hope to try these out in the not too distant future.

The Darkest Africa rules are again more in-depth feature army lists and campaing rules (including a nifty map). Not really my cup of tea but definately a good starting point, or possibly additional material, for gamers interested in the setting.

The last two articles deal with the Greeks. The first is a history lesson on Greek warfare followed by a 2-page article on painting suitable miniatures. The space for these two articles should have been used to add more substance to the pirates part (for my liking) or the Roman part (for overall balance of themes). The way it is now, it appears somewhat random and only broadens the range of topics at the price of depth of the other themes.

I would have liked to see more weight on fewer topics than touching this many and only providing only few articles. Of course, the book is meant to appeal to many gamers, but this way does it appeal to people who are, say, interested in wargaming with Greeks? Does it appeal to people who are interested in Romans? I don't think so. If you are interested in those setting you probably have the material already and the stuff provided in the book is not sufficient to do as a starting point. In my mind it is for the Aztecs however and probably also for Darkest Africa. So the problem is that you don't know what to expect when buying the book - is it supplemental material for players who know their stuff or is it a good starting point for players who want to get into a new period? Unfortunately the answer varies from theme to theme, increasing the chance of disappointing the reader.

Threadbare

2010-09-12T11:24:00.000+02:00

Threabare from Stone Sour's new album Audio Secrecy is currently totally blowing my mind. The record is growing on me quickly and I recommend it highly. Just don't expect anything Slipknot from it (except if you think Snuff)...

Alright, back on topic: Sorry for the recent lack of posts. Real life blah blah - I know, poor excuse. Actually even hobby-wise I have been very much into something else for the last few months, which is not tabletop related. I might briefly post about it here at some point, too. I still have to - and want to - finish the last two of my Tabletop World buildings, which are now out of production (who would have known).

I'll be back.

Palm Trees & Jungle Sections

2010-08-01T11:17:00.000+02:00

No tropical jungle withouth palm trees. For 28mm wargaming there are plenty of options for usable palm trees of a variety of prices and quality. To enhance my jungle board I was looking for good trees and found many options. For a long time I was going to buy the A type palm trees from Pegasus Hobbies, especially because of Anthony Karl Erdelji's excellent article at the Painting Clinic. Still, these trees are not very cheap and I would need quite a number of them.

Recently, after reading Matakishi's Jungle article I bought ten palm trees at the Baker Company. £1,50 each is a very good price but the shipping costs to Germany of £6,85 (for ten palms) are ridiculous and don't get even close to the actual costs. However, they included one free extra palm tree, which mildly made me feel better. I'm not a fan of complaining about shipping costs (such as on ebay auctions) as you know them in advance and it still is up to you to make a purchase at the given conditions or not. But I was annoyed to see the cheap post label on the package.

The palm trees consist of a rather unusual wire plus fabric construction, which does look great eventually:

So what to do with them? For some time I have been itching to try out CD based terrain pieces and this is the perfect opportunity. I also have a few 40mm flat round bases from GW which are useful as one-offs. I used modelling putty to fill the holes of the CDs and put one palm tree in the middle, others were glued onto the CD. Then I added stones of various sizes and lastly sand.

And ready for base-coating:

Jungle Board

2010-07-29T11:50:00.001+02:00

For Christmas 2008 my girl-friend gave me this marvellous four piece tropical beach set by Battlefield Architect (check out his ebay store for all of his cool items):

With a length of 48" it is perfect for the skirmish gaming table.

I also ordered this set of five jungle terrain pieces:

Island Natives painted by Andrew Thomson

Although I used this scenery in a few photos for my pirate figures (most notably Redbeard's Sea Dogs, beautifully painted by Tom), I never got around to actually using them in-game, because I lacked a proper jungle board to go with the beach. Inspired by the countless posts of CD-based jungle terrain on the Lead Adventure Forum and Matakishi's Jungle article I chose to purchase some palm trees and finally ~~finish~~ start my jungle board. So after looking into aquarium terrain I will now do some jungle terrain for my jungle board...

to be continued...

Aquarium Terrain

2010-07-26T19:11:00.001+02:00

The aquarium terrain of pet shops holds many excellent pieces of scenery for even the 28mm wargamer. The settings that are best "supported" are Egypt (sphinx, abu simbel, temple ruins, ...) and jungle (trees, rocks, temple, mausoleum, bridge, and - of course - plants) as well as ancient pillars and even temples. To top it off these pieces come perfectly painted to boot. Using aquarium plastic plants for jungle terrain is surely nothing new and has been done by wargamers for many many years. However, the use of aquarium decorations for architectural terrain seems to be surprisingly under-used considering how perfectly many of these items suit the standard 28mm scale and how affordable they are (especially when compared to similar resin products made specifically for wargaming). The above pieces are just some examples of the many goodies that are to be found at pet shops. And if you don't have a good pet shop nearby then you can easily find these items on ebay too - chances are that they are even cheaper there.

Inspired by the photos on the Lead Adventure Forum and especially by Alex Bews' pirate gallery I was really curious to find out how well they would work. I had wanted to do a jungle board for piratey games for quite awhile now and I already have a few cool pieces that want to get played on more often, but I lack a proper gaming table to use them for. So as a nice change from painting the (marvellous!) Tabletop World buildings, and because I am playing pirates now more often, I decided to try some of these items and placed an order.

I ordered three pieces from a very cheap ebay seller, but unfortunately he only one and couldn't ship the other two (which really annoyed the heck out of me). This temple cost EUR 10,40 and it is just great:

I have to say, I am very happy with this piece and I can very well recommend this stuff to anyone playing in a jungle setting, be it Lustrian Lizardmen, pirate treasure hunters, Indian expeditions or what-the-heck-ever. Actually I think with the availability of terrain pieces such as this jungle boards are the most cost-effective gaming boards you can create. By this I mean spending just a little while still achieving great results (as opposed to being super stingy and achieving "okay" results at best). Maybe a desert table with a few Egyptian statues, ruins and temples is even cheaper and easier because you probably need less terrain overall. On the other hand, aquarium plants are super cheap so that shouldn't be much a problem. Anyways, definately check out your nearby pet shops and let the available stuff inspire you.

Next time I'll post some pictures of my jungle board in progress - or photos of the Blacksmith's Forge from Tabletop World. We'll see where the muse leads me...

Til then

German Board Games

2010-07-18T14:13:00.000+02:00

Miniature Wargaming pointed me to this article at Financial Times, "Why we still love board games", talking about the ongoing success of board games and particularly looking at the German industry. Very interesting.

Reading Tip: The Authentic Tudor & Stuart Dolls' House

2010-06-24T10:36:00.000+02:00

I recently found this book on amazon: The Authentic Tudor & Stuart Dolls' House by Brian Long. It is an awesome resource for miniaturists wishing to create authentic historical doll houses of the Tudor & Stuart era, focussing on 1603-1625. The book is aimed at 1/12 scale doll houses but it is an equally great resource to scratch-builders of tabletop scenery. Covering all relevant aspects such as timber frames, roofing and interior, and giving illustrations and colour photos this book provides all the info you need to build an authentic half-timbered house.

Once I finish my batch of Tabletop World houses and have some free time I look forward to scratch-building a house with this book as a guideline.

Dolls House supplies

2010-06-19T11:21:00.001+02:00

I recently discovered Mollys House Miniatures, a supplier for dolls house accessories. (By the way, I found the link following this awesome zeppelin project on LAF - check it out!) Some items from Mollys range of 1/48th scale stuff is perfect for 28mm wargamers. For example, have a look at these dead cheap furniture (£1.90 for a pack). Not all of the items suit the 28mm scale - some look a bit small - but many of them are just perfect, such as the chairs and table. Comparison shots with Village Idiot from Hasslefree Miniatures (28mm to eye level):

You can easily furnish a full house with this stuff for very little money. The detail isn't perfect of course (cheap plastics mass made in China) but with a little repaint it will look really good.

That's not all, though. Mollys also has some excellent metal bits from S&D Models (who list the items under 1/43 products while it is 1/48 at Mollys). I ordered the Green Grocers Set of veg sacks, crates and scales. This will be a great addition to the stalls of my Gierburg market square. They also have some other useful stuff such as buckets and barrels.

And now for the highlight: Etched brass pub signs and weather vanes. This stuff is absolutely stunningly beautiful! I immediately started drooling when I saw these at the shop and I was afraid they might be too big for 28mm. Fortunately Mollys has good info on the sizes and I couldn't believe to find them suitably sized. Now I really really can't wait to start working on my recently purchased second Coaching Inn and make good use of these items.

Check out the 1/48 Garden/Outside category for these items with better photos and exact information on measurements. I can tell you they fit perfectly.

So far Mollys Miniatures and especially the etched brass signs qualify for my personal "Miniature Find of the Year" award. Awesome accessories for very little money (heck, one sign/vane costs £0.60 to £0.70!) - a must for every terrain builder.

Blacksmith's Forge for Sale!

2010-06-16T14:09:00.001+02:00

My Blacksmith's Forge from Forge World is now up for sale. It's not that I don't like it, but I have been thinking about how to arrange my Gierburg gaming table and it just doesn't fit in there. I would be very happy if the piece found a new owner who will treat it good. :)

Note that I am not intending to get the mere retail price considering the effort that went into preparing and painting the building. If you are interested or have questions please use the contact form to get in touch.

Update: The build has been sold.

Figure is for scale reference only

Gallows finished

2010-06-13T18:47:00.000+02:00

The gallows (see WIP here) are now finished. Enjoy!
(Click photos to enlarge)

Scratch-built Gallows

2010-06-04T10:46:00.001+02:00

As a break from painting the (fabulous) Tabletop World houses I chose to scratch-build something quick that I had been wanting to do for a long time: gallows. Every table needs gallows. You can use them in wild west games, pirate games, x civil war, Mordheim - everywhere. It's one of those standard pieces almost every gamer has tried their hands at so now it was time to do one myself. This will be the centrepiece of my Gierburg market square, where the citizens watch the charlatans being put to justice while doing the weekly shopping spree. I am also using it (already) in my current pirate games.

I searched the internet for inspirational images but didn't find anything particularly to my liking that I could flat out copy. So the design is a mix of various depictions I have seen and what I felt would be a good design for gaming purposes. Now without further ado here is the piece:

The piece is made from all sorts of wooden sticks from my "wood bitz box": coffee stirring sticks (a pack I bought on ebay years ago, which seems to last a lifetime), toothpicks, balsa, un-/used matches, tongue depressors and other stuff. It pays off to collect all sorts of wooden sticks over the years. The hinges of the trapdoors are bits of wire. I glued the various pieces with glue gel, by the way. It dries much quicker than PVA and was just perfect for this construction.

I made this small lever which will be used in the games to activate the trap doors - from then on it's only few turns until it's all over. The attackers will have to prevent the executioner and other enemy models from moving into base contact with the lever and pulling it.

The stairs have a bit of space between the steps so that miniatures on 25mm bases can be placed on the steps (a system I stole from Pardulon's stairs I used on the Governor's Mansion):

It was a lot of work filing all the wooden strips and sticks but I am pretty happy with how the gallows turned out eventually. Now on to base-coating and painting...

Update: See the finished gallows here.

A New Old Coaching Inn

2010-05-30T15:29:00.000+02:00

During my first visit to the Battlefield Berlin store I already noticed that they had two of DIMA's resin coaching inns in their shelves. You know, this one. Even though I already own one - no, actually because I already own one - I was very tempted. Painting it was the most fun I ever had painting anything and the building marks the beginning of my Gierburg board with all the buildings that followed. So during my last visit, after a great game of Flying Lead, I could not withstand temptation and bought one of the houses.

I don't think I will paint this up anytime soon, though. I have a lot to do with the remaining buildings from my Tabletop World order and I am more interested in those currently. But I will definately paint the inn some day. Maybe it will be the last building I finish for the board - a nice way of coming full circle. This time I will do some modifications to the building. Firstly, I want to remove the Mordheim emblems from the wall. Also, looking at the windows, they are quite thin so I could probably easily remove the "glass" and make them "see-through-able". Creating a proper interior for the house would be really cool and I think I will do something similar like I did with Resina Planet's Governor's Mansion by adding stairs, walls and interior. But that is still some time in the future. For now I just wanted to share my nostalgia. :)

Facades by Geboom

2010-05-25T14:13:00.001+02:00

I don't usually do news posting on my blog but this has really inspired and impressed me:

After a long break Gerard Boom (aka Geboom; check out his website) has resumed his plaster carving work for tabletop scenery. I met him at this year's Tactica convention and it was great watching him do his thing and trying it myself. Now Geboom has posted some of the new facades for his "Amsterdam Canal Project" on his website (go to the projects section).

They're stunning. Geboom uses sketches from the Dutch digital archives for reference (search for "bouwtekening", or "voorgevel"). These first facades look very authentic and detailed. I can't wait for him to release resin castings of them and paint up a few myself.

Update:
Seriously, check out his website: This stuff is awesome.

Medieval Inn from Tabletop World

2010-05-21T15:03:00.003+02:00

Today I want to show you my version of Tabletop World's Medieval Inn. The resin building basically consists of a ground floor piece, a first floor and a roof piece, plus a chimney. There are some very nice additional bits: a bucket, a barrel, a broom, three lanterns, a sign, flower buckets and even a female citizen miniature. (Which is - let's face it - sub-parly sculpted. But hey, it's free - so who would want to complain! Their current figures look way better - check them out!)

What I especially like about the design is that there are see-through windows on both floors which makes the house perfectly playable from the inside. If you need to you can easily saw a hole in the first floor and add some stairs or go with a trap-door.

The painting was done quite similarily to the Merchant's House although I didn't paint the walls as bright. In the comments to the recent WIP post for this building Ivan of Tabletop World suggested using Bleached Bone instead of full white and, of course, I followed. :)

The sign that comes with the house has no modelled emblems so you are free to add whatever you want. Of course, this can be difficult as freehand painting is not so easy for the average painter - it definately is hard for me! Since I already have an inn with the Blue Wolf Inn and I still dream of getting the huge Coaching Inn from Forge World some day I didn't want this to be yet another inn. Thinking about possible signs and logos I came up with simple scissors to represent a tailor's house. To spice up the sign (and to somewhat distinguish it from a barber's shop) I added a "T". I think it came out okay. Lastly I once again added posters for a bit of additonal character.

Hope you like it!

Up next: the Blacksmith's Forge

Reading Tip: Scourge of the Seas

2010-05-17T21:32:00.000+02:00

Recently I bought Osprey's "Scourge of the Seas" by Angus Konstam. This 240-page hardcover book compiles the contents of the previously released books "Elite 67: Pirates 1660-1730", "Elite 69: Buccaneers 1620-1700", "Elite 74: Privateers & Pirates 1730-1830" and "New Vanguard 70: The Pirate Ship 1660-1730", and thus provides an excellent overview from the rise of the bucaneers to the golden age of piracy. Highly recommended to anyone wishing to get into piratey wargaming and interested in knowing what it is they're recreating - beyond the Hollywood clichés.

WIP Medieval Inn

2010-05-09T19:14:00.000+02:00

After the Merchant's House I am currently painting the Medieval Inn from Tabletop World. It will take a couple of more days of painting, but to bide the time here is a first WIP shot.

The Merchant's House

2010-04-26T13:48:00.002+02:00

In this post I present the first of my recently acquired buildings from Tabletop World: the Merchant's House. This will be the usual review + painting guide combination article, so if you are only here for the pretty pictures you'll have to skip the next part. :)
I chose to start with the small house and work my way via the Medieval Inn and the Forge to the Ruined Coaching Inn. This way the building structures get more complex and interested and so does the painting. So here is the smallest, least conspicuous of the buildings, the Merchant's House.

The Kit
The kit comes with very few pieces, i.e. the various floors are solid single pieces - no glueing required. Additional bits include two lanterns and a barrel. One of the supports broke off (see photo, directly below the roof), but could be glued back to the model easily.

The ground floor had a few thin spots and holes, which I had to fill with putty. It wasn't much effort and no big deal.

I really like the design of the house. It is not your standard timber-frame house but neither is it the over the top crap GW has been producing lately. Although this is Tabletop World's smallest building it has a good height (making it hard to photograph in all its glory, see below) and enough different structures to be a good looking house on its own. The spikes on the roof make the house suitable for Warhammer players as it would blend with GW's Empire houses. At the same time you could just remove them to achieve a more historical look. I chose to leave them as they are for now.

There are two flaws in the design of the roof, though. Firstly, the position of the chimney doesn't make too much sense as it would have to go directly behind the window. Secondly, it would be nice if the bottom side of the roof was modelled instead of flat. This doesn't stand out much on the finished model but it would be look better nonetheless.

Painting
While I usually paint my buildings in a similar way to my Blue Wolf Inn I had to paint the walls differently this time. Firstly, the surface is different (sanded instead of flat) so I had to change my technique. Secondly, for some time now I have been wanting to use a warmer tone than the cold grey/white. I really like Tabletop World's studio paint jobs and I was very impressed by Jorisch's recently posted Watch Tower. Looking through my available paint pots I found GW's Vomit Brown to be probably the best base colour. And the thought of painting the walls with vomit made me chuckle. Yeah, I am like that... :)

So here's how I painted the walls' plaster:

Watered down Vomit Brown (GW)
50/50 Wash of Vomit Brown + Codex Grey (GW)
Wash of Fortress Grey (GW)
Wash of White
Drybrush with White

The inside was painted with Vomit Brown and Bleached Bone (GW) and a few additional stains of Bestial Brown (GW) and White. Vomit Brown was extremely useful as I didn't only use it for the walls but also for the stones: A mix of Black, Codex Grey (GW) and Vomit Brown creates a very natural looking stone tone. I still don't feel like I really know what I'm doing when painting stones as it is a uncontrolled chaos of drybrushing greys and applying mixes of greys and browns. The Vomit mix was the best to come out of this and I hope that by the time I finish the last of the Tabletop World buildings I will finally have my technique down.

Although the inside isn't modelled it looks pretty okay when painted. You won't see the inside much during game play anyways. Still, removable roofs are always a winner.

My second MVP (most valuable paint ;) was Catachan Green. I used it for the roof, on the walls and the stonework and wherever you apply this colour it creates a great weathering effect.

Lastly I added a few Gierburg posters to the walls. This side looks like it was made specifically to provide space for them. More photos:

Conclusion
One of the stand-out features of Tabletop World's scenery is that they build their master models with actual stones, piece by piece. They also use actual wood for the woodwork and it really shows. The detail and structure of this building(and their others) could not be achieved by using modelling putty. This makes painting much easier as you can quickly achieve great effects by simple drybrushing but it also increases the overall painting potential. Funnily, what started as the least impressive building when it was standing there in its resin yellow glory has turned out to be the best building I have painted to date. If the next three houses turn out equally good, then I will be more than happy. And so I am closing this review with: Thank you, Tabletop World, for creating these buildings.

Up next: the Medieval Inn.

It's A Tabletop World

2010-04-19T14:06:00.002+02:00

I just received my massive order from Tabletop World. These are some brilliant buildings and I really can't wait to paint them up.

From left to right: The Merchant's House, the Ruined Coaching Inn, the Medieval Inn on the Town Square, and the Blacksmith's Forge. Not all contents shown (additional bits).

This photo gives a very rough idea of what my Gierburg table will look like eventually:

Imagine some market stands, cobblestone streets, civilians and lots of other stuff...

These houses will keep me busy for a while. Up next: the Merchant's House in all its glory.

Pirates Game

2010-03-06T21:01:00.002+01:00

After my move to Berlin last week I searched for others players in the city via the Sweetwater Forum. Today I met some of them at the Battlefield Berlin store and played my first game of Triumph & Tragedy. Luckily this was a pirates setting so I could use my pirate crew for LotHS.

The guys were really cool and open and I had a great time - despite me learning the rules the hard way and losing my crew within the first few rounds. The involved factions were: Spanish pirates, a pirate chick crew, a horde of natives, mysterious green critters of tall tales, and lastly, my own pirate crew of course. Here are some photos of the epic battle on the island of doom. Some of them are blurry - I am sorry for that. For the full set of the photos see the Photobucket album.

The natives attacked me early on. And I lost most of my crew to them. :(

A mysterious god of the natives summoned by their singing?

You really don't want to mess with this guy!

Battlegames Interview with Rick Priestley and John Stallard

2010-03-04T11:36:00.001+01:00

On the Battlegames Magazine website you can find the full unabridged interview with Rick Priestley and John Stallard that Henry Hyde made for Battlegames issue 21. This massive 27-page PDF contains lots of interesting background information on Rick and John, the founding and evolution of Games Workshop and the development of Warhammer, 40k and Warmaster. Highly recommended read!

Download the Interview here

Hamburger Tactica 2010

2010-03-02T13:36:00.007+01:00

From February 27th to 28th the Tactica convention was held in Hamburg. Despite me just moving to Berlin on Friday I went to Hamburg for a quick visit. This was the third time I went there and it is always worth it (click here for 2009). Unfortunately I had very little time so I spent only 2.5 hours there, and there seems to be a lot less going on on the second day. At around 14:30 - 1.5 hours before closing - many booths and tables were already being packed, so I definately recommend going on Saturday if you can. I was very disappointed to find out that the Nosferatu table by Karsten Radzinski (aka Vikotnik) wasn't there that day anymore, as I was really looking forward to seeing that in the flesh (for photos see here and here) after mentioning it in my top wargames tables list. Anyways, I still had a good time there and, of course, took some photos. Let's have a look...

The Tactica Figure
There is always an exclusive promotional figure available at the convention. This year it was famous German privateer captain Klaus Störtebeker. The figure was sculpted by Frank Germershaus and I look forward to using it for Legends of the High Seas. After all, he is a legend!

The Tables
Here are some photos of the tables and dioramas that were still at display during my stay. As I mentioned above some tables were already being boxed again or not even there at all on day two. Still, there was some nice stuff going on:

Rivendell by Wolfgang Jädtke (more photos here):

Mordheim catacombs, also by Wolfgang. WIP and more photos at the Gidian Gelände Forum.

I was very impressed with this World War 1 board. I recently came across Games of War's trench system terrain and I am really interested in this genre. I'd love to play a few games of Warhammer Historical's Great War, but I really don't have the funds or time for yet another period. Maybe some day in the future...

Terrain Workshop with Geboom
This was definately the highlight of my short visit. Gerard Boom was sitting there and explaining his method for creating buildings, terrain and ships by carving dental plaster. He was incredibly kind and helpful and I greatly enjoyed this mini workshop. Below you can see my own first attempt at this method. Check out his website Shifting Lands.

The Loot
Like last time I pre-ordered a bunch of stuff. Both MiniaturicuM and Battlefield Berlin offered discounts again so I took the opportunity and get some more Gierburg figures.

I have to say the West Wind miniatures are great! The Kinder Nacht Wagon is a monster of a pack weighing 434g (15.3oz)! Talk about understatement: on their website WWP do mention that the pack contains a wagon, children and driver, but they neglect the four massive oxen that pull the wagon! I was very pleasantly surprised.

Check out these links for more photos of the Tactica:

Deathsman of Gierburg

2010-02-24T08:18:00.000+01:00

Good day to you fine people!

In Gierburg you really don't want to get caught and put in prison. You have already seen the Torturer and Jailer and recently Big Al, the Gaoler. Today I present a gruesome so-called "Deathsmen" for Gierburg, a limited resin figure from ANAKRON Miniatures, which is already out of stock. Fortunately Chris put down his pre-order early on when he first saw it on CMON and is now the proud owner of this model.

I tried to echo the Gierburg colours (red and white/grey) in his clothes to suggest his affiliation with the city's government. The weathering on the axe was done as follows:

Brush with GW tin bitz
Brush with GW Boltgun Metal
Heavily wash with watered down VMC Orange Brown
Slightly overbursh with Boltgun metal once dry

Hope you like it!

Lady Killer

2010-02-15T17:06:00.001+01:00

Hey guys!

Today's miniature is a Female Assassin from CMON. Like some of the other minis I showed you recently she is a limited edition and now OOP. This was a particularily intricate model to paint, because it is very finely detailed. Colour wise I wanted her to somewhat match the Messengers of Death that I painted last year.

Assassin sneaking up on two young noblemen

Swashbuckling Nobles

2010-02-11T17:07:00.001+01:00

Hi Gierburgers!

Today I am showing you two young noblemen I painted for Chris. On these guys I went for a "clean"shirt, using a more blue-ish palette to suggest a thinner and more expensive cloth. One that would suit young noblemen.

I started with a mix of VGC Sombre Grey + VMC White and worked my way up to pure white. Some folds in the shirt took some time to get accentuated properly, because they were either very shallow or non existant. I always find that painting whites is pretty difficult and even when you get the hang of it, you need to be REALLY patient.

Richard - Work in Progress

The first one is Richard the Rake (originally named "Diego the Rogue") from Heresy Miniatures. This really cool and charismatic mini is one of Andy Foster's earliest sculpts (along with Scrote, the Jailer) and unfortunately they both were taken out of the Heresy range recently.

The second nobleman is by Black Cat Bases. This one doesn't have a name (yet) - something cianty will hopefully remedy soon!

Just like Richard this one wears a posh white shirt to stress his social status in Gierburg.

The two nobles fighting a group of Bondsmen

Bondsmen of Gierburg: The Leader

2010-02-07T17:06:00.000+01:00

A few months ago I presented the first members of Chris' warband of Bondsmen for Gierburg. Today I present their leader: Gerrard, Bondsmen Leader, sculpted by Tom Meier, produced by Dark Sword Miniatures. While Chris really loved the sculpt, he chose to add a tricorne from Black Scorpion's pirate weapon sprue to the model to make it fit the Bondsman style of French greatcoats.

I tried to use as much black as possible without making the miniature dull to look at.

Gerrard leading his group of Bondsmen through the streets of Gierburg

Whoohoo!!!

2010-02-06T14:13:00.001+01:00

Going a little off topic today...

After seeing this episode of the Nostalgia Critic I had to dig up the intro to DuckTales.

Aaah.. the memories.. The version I grew up with was obviously the German one:

It's awesome to hear other countries' versions as well. Personally I find the Dutch version incredibly epic:

There even is a full length version of the song:

As a Barks fan I can't totally approve of the TV show but the song is definately catchy as hell. In fact most of these old shows have awesome intros: Chip 'n Dale, Gummi Bears, Tale Spin, Darkwing Duck... Browsing youtube for these songs is always a fun trip down memory lane. The comics (and to a lesser extend the cartoons) got me into drawing, painting and eventually the wargames hobby. Maybe I'll go into that a bit further at some point in the future. Anyways, back to Thomas and his latest Gierburg paint jobs...

Citizens of Gierburg: Kids

2010-02-04T17:07:00.003+01:00

Hey guys!

Today is Kid's Day in Gierburg. These cute figures are all from Hasslefree Miniatures, namely it's the Village Kiddies and the Medieval Kids packs.

The cutest models I have ever had the opportunity to paint.

Trick or treat

Citizens of Gierburg: Girls Girls Girls

2010-01-30T14:07:00.000+01:00

Hi guys!

Today I would like to show you some of the female civilians I painted for Gierburg. All models are from Black Cat Bases.

The first model is this unfortunate Captured Noblewoman. Fancy clothing. It is my first shot ever at painting make-up on a model (I like my women natural normally ^^) but I thought I'd give it a try. I also placed a teeny tiny white spot in the lower lip to simulate light reflection.
I think that doesn't look too bad.

Next is a young woman of far less noble stock, but in turn she knows how to take care of herself: Jeny, the Wench.

Last is the Innkeeper's Wife... another one. I thought Stilhoufen already had a wife called Bertha... but who am I to judge - I prefer not to get involved in these things. At least this confusion would explain her bad mood:

I like to slightly accentuate faces with pink to simulate bloodflow. It makes the models look much more alive. In real life, faces are most often not monochrome, but have different colours. The cheeks and lips are usually better irrigated than the rest of the face.

To achieve this effect quite simply on your miniature, all you need to do is add a very small amount of red to your mix and water it down well (consistency of milk). The 2 things to keep in mind are

Don't add too much red. It is better to add another layer than to have clown-like red cheeks.
Water down the paint. Why? Because it makes it more transparent and more subtle. Also, should you inadvertedly mask recesses with it, you can quickly "save" the situation by absorbing the excess paint with a fresh dry brush (capillary forces are your friend here!)

Then carefully accentuate zones where you imagine bloodflow e.g. lips, cheeks and nose.

Citizens of Gierburg: Vendors

2010-01-27T15:54:00.000+01:00

There is a number of different types of merchants operating in Gierburg. Vendors wander the narrow ways of the south, pushing a small cart or with a tray around their neck full of wares, usually some sort of light snack or beverage to aid a thirsty traveller.

Hey guys!

It's Tom reporting on Cianty's blog again. The painting is going well and there are plenty of new Gierburg citizens that I want you to "meet". Today I'm showing you two characterful figures from Alionas Miniatures that I painted for the Gierburg Project: the Fishwife and the Appleseller.

First is Hazel, the Fishwife. This is one of my first models entirely with Vallejo paints (save for the wash on the apron for which I used GW Devlan Mud.

I find fish can be a little tricky to paint, since it is hard to get the colour right. Everybody has a mental picture of a typical fish, but when you ask what actual "color" it is, it is tricky to define. I would say, most commercial fish are black-ish or silver-ish. However this would not necessarily look very recognisable on a miniature. So I decided to go for green, with the following recipie:

1. Basecoat VMC US Dark Green
2. Add VGC Camouflage Green increasingly and overbrush (stay mainly on the dorsal side of the animal)
3. Repeat with the same mix, but add a drop of VMC Dark Sand (Arena Oscura) and only overbrush the dorsal side.
4. Give the whole fish a wash of watered down VMC US Dark Green

The other vendor is Johan, the Appleseller. This is a model where you need to do some careful highlighting, shading and possibly some blending. The shirt is rather intricate (although it doesn't look like it) because its folds are deep enough to require shading but shallow enough to look unnatural if overdone. It took quite a while to get the mixes of VMC Tierra Mate and VMC Arena Oscura right, and I had to work my way back and forth between the different hues on the model to zero in on what I found to look best.

Enjoy the pics!

See you soon with another post!
Tom

WIP sneak peek of more Gierburg citizens coming soon

My Top 10 Favourite Wargaming Boards

2009-12-10T21:04:00.001+01:00

I have been wanting to make this post for a while now and with the Christmas days approaching quickly I guess it now is the perfect time. So here is my holiday post: My Top 10 favourite gaming boards.

This is a purely subjective rundown of wargaming boards that I came across on the internet. Of course, the list is not comprehensive and you might have different opinions - especially if you are more interested in Sci-Fi, Wild West, Pulp, FIW, Steampunk or whatever. To me though, they are a tremendous source of inspiration and amazement and I like to drool over them regularly.

I hope you enjoy it.

#10 - Pirate Town (Rob_Jedi)
Rob_Jedi's Monkey Island influenced Pirate Town is a great inspiration. You can see it at the Privateer Press Forums and at Oz Painters.

#9 - Temple Triade de Jade (Yiu)
This is a very impressive jungle board for Alkemy. Check it out on the Alkemy forum.

#8 - Mordheim (Flame_On)
The Flame On guys have created an incredible Mordheim table. You can see many photos of their terrain on Tom's Boring Mordheim Forum in their many Battle Reports.

#7 - Village (Captain Blood)
I found this village by Captain Blood on the Lead Adventure Forum. You can see some stunning close ups of the buildings in this thread. He uses a lot of ready painted buildings from PMC Games but the set-up and the Forge World Coaching Inn are amazing.

#6 - Nosferatu - A Symphony of Horror (Vikotnik)
This is a stunning black/white horror board. Read more about it on Lead Adventure Forum or Max Paint (German).

#5 - Tortuga Island (Rux)
I really love this Caribbean style table. I was happy to see it at this year's Tactica convention. You can see more photos of it here.

#4 - Medieval City (Theomar Pius)
This is one of the most impressive medieval cities I ever came across. You can see his barbican townhouses at CoolMiniOrNot and at fotki.

#3 - Fantasy City (Thibo)
This Fantasy City board by CT Scenery is really amazing. And you can even buy the buildings from them. Niceeee.. :)

#2 - Mordheim (Wolfgang Jädtke)
Wolfgang's famous recreation of the City of the Damned is probably the best Mordheim board ever - as well as the most famous. You can see it in the gallery at Gidean-Gelände. However, definately also check out Wolfgang's gallery at Gidean-Gelände as there are tons of other stunning works by him.

#1 - Tod in Lorien (scarface)
Somewhere between gaming table and diorama this is the most impressive set-up I have ever seen on the net. This is actually more than just a diorama, it is an enormous picture story with lots of unbelievably detailed photos. Head over to TabletopWelt.de and check it out. Don't feel bad if it makes you cry with envy and amazement. Also don't be afraid if you don't understand German, because these pictures certainly speak for themselves!

Honorable Mentions

The following mentions don't qualify as gaming boards as they are individual pieces but still are outstanding pieces of scenery/terrain and worth a look or two.

The Gold Mine (Admiral Benbow)
This incredible terrain piece brings some Old West flavour to this post at last. I enjoyed following the development process a lot and looking at it almost makes we want to play some comboys

Pirates Part 2 (Trull)
Trull certainly is a diorama creator extra-ordinare and this probably his most incredible work. Check out his gallery at Gidian-Gelände including more photos of this piece.

Tabletop Geeks Interview

2009-11-09T18:29:00.000+01:00

Svenn of the www.tabletopgeeks.com blog recently asked me for an interview about Mordheim, Border Town Burning and some other stuff. So if you are interested in what's currently going on in my world of wargaming, some rough future plans and other informational hotchpotch, head over to their site and read the interview.

By the way, the site is well worth a bookmark for any Mordheim player, especially their downloads section. :)

My first Sculpt: Bounty Hunter

2009-11-03T22:28:00.002+01:00

I recently took a break from doing scenery for Gierburg and tried something else instead: sculpting! I find sculpting extremely relaxing and a welcome change from building and painting scenery. It is great to see a figure come together before you.

This is my first properly sculpted miniature. I know I have so much to learn, but it is incredible fun - and that's what it is about, isn't it? :) For my first sculpting project I chose to do a hooded bounty hunter type of guy with a French greatcoat (inspired by Martin Baker's Bounty Hunter).

Now without further ado: Ty Cain, Gierburg Head Hunter.

Sculpted with ProCreate (hence the grey green).

I have to admit I cheated on the head and the hand crossbow: They are taken from Hasslefree Miniatures' bits section.

Work on the next mini has already begun and I hope to post some pictures soon. It is time I update the sculpting section of the site. More pics will be up there soonish.

Now I really can't wait to see this guy beautifully painted by Tom. :)

PS: The base is - like all Gierburg minis - from Fenris Games.

X Marks the Spot

2009-10-20T17:55:00.000+02:00

The "X Marks the Spot" scenario from the Legends of the High Seas rulebook requires that you have six treasure markers so I chose to make some. At first I tried some numbers on 25mm bases:

They are not too useful because you place the markers face down. Instead, you would want something to place above them. Still, it was fun doing them. :)

I also made some more "traditional" treasure markers for which I shamelessly stole the idea of using shield emblems from 5th Edition Warhammer Skeleton Warriors (ordered from BitzBox). You can see this idea executed by 'Mad Doc Morris' on the Lead Adventure Forum.

Treasure Hunt!

The Sea is so Wide and my Ship is so Small

2009-10-14T17:56:00.000+02:00

One of the greatest things about playing with pirates is playing with ships. I just love the aesthetics of a large sailing vessel. Even in games on shore I like to have a coast or port of some sort with my boats casting anchor nearby. And as with most cool things, the bigger, the better - but that costs extra. And few gamers can afford to buy properly sized three-masters. After compiling a list of wargame ships I opted for Old Glory's Brigantine, because it was sailing within my budget. I recently finished the ship and now I am ready for some serious boarding action. However, right when I opened the box and saw the model for the first time, I knew it was rather small - definately too small to transport a mid campaign Legends of the High Seas crew (around 20 sailors - maximum is 30!). So I was thinking about what to do about it... I wanted to keep the model and I wanted to use it. In this post I'd like to describe a few solutions I came up with to get the most out of my moderately sized ships in games of Legends of the High Seas.

There are two types of scenarios in the LotHS rulebook focusing on ships; where the ships are not just neat additions to the gaming board, but the epicentre of the action. It is in these scenarios, where size deficiencies (especially a limited breadth) become relevant - and frustrating. So let's get over it!

Sail on the Horizon!/Dangerous Waters! (pages 96-97)
These are the main scenarios for playing with ships themselves: sailing, firing cannons, all the good stuff. In these scenarios a smaller size of the ship model is not that big a problem, because the positioning of your sailors on deck is not as importent as during a boarding action (see below). However, you still need a number of sailors to act as Deck Hands and two models for each cannon (three for the large 12-18lbs). Usually you can just nominate those models on the side facing the enemy vessel to be manning cannons so that you can fully fire, while all remaining models count as Deck Hands. Then, if the ships have moved so that you need the other side to fire, then the previous cannoneers become Deck Hands.

Still the number of crew members may be simply too high to allow placing all of them on the ship. It may then be neccesary to leave some of them below deck. This will allow you to keep more of your models on the ship, even if they don't physically fit in there. For the sake of clarity, the rules for crewmen below deck are described further below in a separate section.

Boarding Action (pages 88-89)
A boarding action is basically a normal onshore scenario with two ships acting as the battle field. This will inevitably lead to a crowded upper deck. If a ship model lacks the appropriate broadth, it will be difficult, or even impossible, to properly place the crewmen. But in this scenario it is all about close combat, charging, fighting over obstacles, etc. So positioning the models is very important here.

Just as with the sailing scenarios you can - actually you must - leave some of your crewmen below deck. If you manage to conquer the enemy vessel, as your sailors enter the other crew's ship, you may gain the required space on your ship to let more sailors enter from below. Alternatively, if you are losing models, you will probably also get the free space for more models to move up. The same rules for crewmen below deck can be used here (see the following section below).

To play out some proper combats, you may still not have enough space yet. In order to further fix this, cannons can be removed from the ship's deck. It is safe to assume that the sailors can easily bend over them or even stand on top of them and still fight as normal. In fact, most cannons won't qualify as an obstacle anyways, as they are not (or only slightly) over 1/2" heigh. Unfortunately the rulebook explicitly depicts cannons as examples of obstacles (see page 16). For the sake of manoeuvrability however, it makes sense to remove them. Let's assume that 3-6lb and 8-9lbs can be ignored and only 12-18lbs need to be jumped over. The space gained from this is certainly worth it. Of course, the ship's railing still counts as an obstacle as normal and models on either sides count as fighting over an obstacle.

Sailors below Deck
A player may leave a number of his models below deck, depending on the ship's size category. Before the game, each player places his models on the ship and nominates the ones below deck. If the Crew still has more members, then these cannot take part in the game. Heroes are important to the crew and thus have to be picked and any remaining Henchmen must miss this game.

Ship Size	Maximum number of Sailors below Deck

Small	5
Medium	8
Large	10

Models below deck cannot be used as Deck Hands for operating the ship, and they cannot fire any of their ranged weapons at enemy models if the opposing ship is within range (to do so, they must come on deck first). In return, they cannot be hit by enemy missile fire such as muskets, pistols or grapeshots from cannons. Note that the Captain ( i.e. the crew's Leader) may never be left below deck - he is way too (self-)important to leave control over his ship to the measly crew without keeping an eye on them!

At the beginning of each player's Movement phase, that player may place one new Sailor in front of the door (or on top of a trap door) from where the model is supposed to enter deck. That model may charge normally this turn.

Sailors below deck are not necessarily completely useless, though. They may operate the cannons that are also below the upper deck, i.e. not physically accessible normally. In fact, there is no other way to use these cannons other than to assing sailors below deck to them. Follow the usual rules for number requirements, i.e. small to medium cannons need two crewmen, large cannons three. Crewmen below deck have a very restricted sight and thus aiming is far more difficult. To represent this, when firing a cannon from below deck, roll two D6 instead of one on the Cannon Table (page 43) and choose the lower result. A Master Gunner Hired Hand operating a cannon below deck may re-roll one of the two dice, then pick the lowest of them (see Excellent Aim special rule, page 107). Remember to explicitly nominate which sailors are firing a cannon before making the roll, because they might suffer damage if the cannon explodes on a misfire.

Although sailors seem to be somewhat safe from enemy shots while they remain below deck, remember that they are not available to operate the ship or any cannons in case you lose crewmen on the upper deck. Also, if the ship should sink (pages 38-39), chances are that these sailors will not be able to save themselves to the upper deck in time. Therefore, it is usually safer to have as many crewmen on the upper deck as possible.

What else?
Another thing that is difficult to properly represent with most model ships is the additional boats that are carried as they will almost always be too big to place aboard the ship. The following is how we rule this situation and an extension of the rules found on page 48 of the rulebook:

If a ship carries any boats, the player must nominate the position where they are supposed to be. At best place a marker there (around 1.5cm x 3cm). In order to launch a boat, two crewmen must start their turn in base contact with a boat marker. Move the sailors towards any side of the ship from where the boat can be launched. The models must remain in base contact throughout. If they are attacked (either by a missile shot or charged), they immediately drop the boat on deck (place the marker where they stand). If they are not disrupted this turn, place the actual boat model next to the ship. Sailors can now jump in the boat following the normal rules.

Ship Marker
(300dpi for printing, photo of the Games of War tender)

Alright, matey, that's it! I hope you find these little additions useful.

May your keel and rum never run dry!

The Old Glory Brigantine sets Sail

2009-10-08T00:06:00.000+02:00

Earlier this year at the Tactica convention I purchased the Old Glory Brigantine from MiniaturicuM. I had been looking for wargames ships for my Legends of the High Seas pirate crews and it came down to this one or none at all, because the alternative (ie. larger) models from Old Glory are too expensive, Stronghold Miniatures is currently pausing business and Games of War hadn't released their medium ship then. So I decided to give this one a try.

Bits and Pieces
Included in delivery are the following parts:

1x ship/hull
1x quarterdeck
1x wall for quaterdeck
10x cannons (6 larger ones, 4 smaller ones)
10x muzzles (6 larger ones, 4 smaller ones)
2x ladders
2x fighting tops
4x mast fixes/connectors(?)
2x large masts (wood, 0.7mm Ø)
1x large mast (remains of the original stick?)
3x small masts (0.5mm Ø)
1x 25mm Pirate miniature with ship wheel

Size
To give you an idea of the ship's size, I placed a couple of members of my pirates Redbeard's Sea Dogs in the ship. It is surely somewhat unfair to use 30mm models with 25mm bases to judge the size of a ship that is explicitly meant for 25mm scale. If you're using 20mm round bases instead (yes, they do exist!), you do get more out of the ship, of course. But 25mm bases are common for most modern pirate miniatures (e.g. Black Scorpion, Black Cat Bases, even Foundry, ... see here for a list of pirate miniatures manufacturers).

As you can see, it gets crowded on deck rather quickly. Considering that you are allowed up to 30 sailors in your Crew, it gets crowded way too quickly. Sure, you will rarely have a warband that exceeds about 20 men. Still, the deck is very small - especially if you want to play a 'Boarding Action' scenario, where enemy models need to be placed as well.

I have played a few games of LotHS with this model already and it became obvious that it is too small. I am considering writing a few rules for having Crew members below deck and still letting them fire cannons. I think it is possible to remedy the limited size of most wargames model ships by using such rules.

Resin
The quality of the resin is somewhere around average - worse than many other products I have encountered recently (like the superb Forge World scenery).

I had to fill a number of bubbles with Green Stuff, which didn't particularly increase my satisfaction with the vessel. I totally understand that it's near impossible to completely avoid bubbles in resin, but when I see a large yellow resin model before me, I don't want to be reminded of holey cheese. Below you can see the fixed hull - now looking like mould cheese.

Assembly & Enhancing the Model
The Old Glory website shows the Brigantine in a slightly different version than it is shown on the Old Glory 25's site. I "pimped" the model a little...

I added a few wooden strips to the bottom of the quarterdeck and the inner hull so that the piece wouldn't move around freely during gameplay.

I bought gunports from a local modelling shop. They fit perfectly into the existing holes and only required little additional filing. I think they are great and improve the overall appearance of the ship a lot.

Then I added a forecastle, made of wooden stirring staffs and shashlik sticks as well as stanchions (decorative turned pillars), which I had bought together with the gunports.

I also expanded the masts slightly and added a flagpole to the quarterdeck. Here is a photo of the full model. As you can see, I was a little impatient and painted the cannons before the rest :)

My last additions were some bits from Games of War: a ship's wheel (because the Brigantine's wheel comes with a 25mm pirate attached, see above), ship bell, anchors and swivel guns.

Painting the Brigantine
WARNING: Properly wash this model! Unfortunately I wasn't careful enough, so the undercoat was chipping off. I hate it when that happens. Sigh!

After cleaning the model it painted up really nicely. The wood has a great structure that is perfect for drybrushing.

No big deal about the colours used (Citadel paints): Scorched brown, Bestial Brown with increasing mixes of White.

The last thing I did was to create a special flag for Captain Redbeard and his pirate crew to go with the ship. The red beard is inspired by the red components of the flags of Edward Teach, Edward Low and John Quelch (see Wikipedia).

Redbeard's pirate flag

The Finished Model

Quarterdeck with ship's wheel and swivel gun

The swivel guns

Forecastle with ship's bell and swivel gun, and the anchor

Conclusion
The biggest downside to the Brigantine is definately the size; its breadth, to be precise. You can barely place your own Crew on the ship, let alone boarding enemy models. The many bubbles in the resin are also somewhat disappointing. I definately wouldn't buy this model again - especially since Games of War have released the Sea Prince in the meantime and I am very happy with the ships I already have from them. Nevertheless, it is a nice model, now that I see it here in front of me with the modifications and enhancements I made. And I can always add the Sea Prince to my shipyard later. :)

Wrecking Ball Review results

Bondsmen of Gierburg: Bounty Hunter, Thief and Rogue

2009-10-01T13:26:00.007+02:00

A new sight on the streets of Gierburg, the Bondsmen are, in reality, little more than Bounty Killers hired by the city to clear up the "Charlatan problem". As opposed to the Guard, Bondsmen are well seen by the citizens, for a Bondsman is usually not a noble's lickspittle. He looks for his mark, does his business, looks down on merchants and doesn’t interfere with the peasants. The Guard on the other hand dislikes Bondsmen. The Guard considers Bondsmen to idly wait around until a Charlatan appears, at which point they stroll in, order the Guard around, then leave with the dirty work done for them and pocket the money for the kill. And that, often with disregard for the guardmen's safety.

The first Bondsman is this Bounty Hunter from Black Cat Bases. This is actually one of the first models Chris chose for Gierburg, he told me, as it captures the "cloak and dagger" feel admirably. With his Brotherhood of the Wolf style the model is as iconic a figure for Gierburg as the mad Jesters (and my beloved Messengers of Death).

Another scoundrel to go with the Bondsmen is the cool Rogue model from Custom Made Minis.

Last, but certainly not least, we have Arsen van Thomas, an inspired burglar model from Heresy Miniatures. Now, I don't choose the names for the models, Chris does, and I don't think this guy is named after me, although I like to believe it is a homage to the painter... one can always dream.

The gang doing a "job"

Cheers!
-Tom

Messengers of Death

2009-09-25T20:09:00.000+02:00

An assassin might be a poseur who can kill well, but a Messenger of Death truly is a force of nature. Very few people know where they come from, why they do what they do, how they do what they do and where they go to. All that is certain is that a Messenger of Death is extremely effective at killing those they have been told to kill. In fact, they don’t always kill their targets, because the mere promise that a Messenger of Death is on your trail can send some individuals into taking their own lives. Unless that is also caused by a Messenger and made to look like suicide.

Today I'll get all cloak and dagger-y on you guys. These Messengers of Death as they are called in Gierburg, are elite assassins. And more. Those guys are maybe my favourite characters, so I am happy to present them to you today.

Gierburg's Messengers of Death are represented by the Assassins from Freebooter Miniatures.

According to the Gierburg backgroud, Messengers of Death traditionally wear "blood red masks".

A Messenger infiltrates the Burgomeister's Mansion:

I did a subtle "dust" effect on the Messenger of Death's cloak to underline his outdoor activities. I imagine these assassins to be masters of infiltration and escape, darting accross rooftops, climbing walls at unlikely angles, blending into crowds (or shadows) etc... getting through such a hit and run mission is unlikely to leave clothing immaculate.

Also Gierburg has some pretty filthy back-alley (ideal infil/exfil routes) favoured by Messengers of Death for the cover they provide. So again, I felt a slightly dirty cloak would emphasize this. Slightly dirty, because ideally a Messenger of Death should be able to remove his mask and look like an ordinary civilian if needed.

See you next time!
- Tom

Citizens of Gierburg: Mr. Smith

2009-09-20T13:27:00.001+02:00

Hey guys!

Today it's another civilian's turn: Garolph, the Blacksmith from Guild of Harmony. This is simply a magnificent miniature (and I mean the sculpt). It was a real pleasure to paint, as it is incredibly detailed yet logical and well proportioned. So it paints rather easily despite it's richness of detail.

Enough talk, here are the pics.

I wanted to keep the miniature as "brown" as possible to reflect the heavy protective leather clothing that I image a smith would wear. I also could not resist giving the metal rod an incandescant effect (although I have already used this on the torturer), because a smith's miniature just screams for such a detail.

Garolph in front of his workplace, the blacksmith's forge:

As usual, I hope you like it.
Cheers and see you next time,

-Tom

Warhammer Blacksmith's Forge

2009-09-14T13:19:00.002+02:00

My latest building for Gierburg is the Blacksmith's Forge from Forge World. I already posted the Warhammer Well and the Bloomery, and this is the last Forge World piece for now.¹

Contents

Main Building
2 Roof sections
Chimney
5 sets of 2 shutters each
Set of 2 main doors

First impression
My first impression was that the building was smaller than I expected. It's not that small actually, the windows e.g. have the right height/position for a 28-30mm miniature. However, the door/gate looks rather small with a miniature in front of it.

Still, it is a great piece with astounding detail. I was very impressived with the wood structure, the detailed stones and the additional bits like barrels and wheels. The interior detail with the barrels, furnace and bellows is amazing. Also, there are no air bubbles in the resin. The quality of the piece is absolutely top level. There is nothing broken (as with the Bloomery) and there is very little flesh.

Apart from the disappointing size the only downside is that the base is a bit too big and thick and it requires some filing.

Second impression
I found a thin mold line on the chimney while cleaning the model, but that could be removed very easily. The quality really is great. However, there is one problem with the design: The two roof sections don't fit together so well, leaving a huge gap on the front wall. I tried washing the parts with warm water to bend them better but that didn't help. I was wondering for some time what to do with them until I finally decided to just glue the roof together and live with it.

I didn't glue the chimney on the model as otherwise I would have problems removing the roof. So the chimney is just put in there and can make place when necessary.

Add-ons
I added a sign from Thomarillion to the front above the door. I think it really adds a lot to the overall look.

The Painted Forge
Painting the forge was rather painless and done similarly to the Warhammer Stable. After the Governor's Mansion, which required a lot of additional work, it was refreshing to just paint a building.

_____________________________________
¹Unfortunately this building is currently out of production and not available in Forge World's online store (March 30th, 2010). Let's hope it returns soon!

Writings on the Wall: Gierburg Posters

2009-09-10T00:27:00.001+02:00

Something I have been wanting to do for a long time is add posters to the walls and buildings of Gierburg. What really inspired me and eventually made me do this is Grimm's fantastic Cthulhu board that he made for the 2009 Tactica convention. His photos of the walls with posters are simply amazing. They are so full of character and atmosphere that I had to try this myself.

Luckily the background and fluff for Gierburg is filled with great themes for all sorts of posters so I immediately had a couple of ideas. For the first poster I went with one of my favourite themes: the Jesters. One of the poor fellows would have gone so crazy that he is a danger to the citizens and now the City Guards are looking for him. I wanted to do a somewhat traditional Wild West style 'Wanted' poster with the mugshot of a Jester on it.

I sketched a Jester's head with a pencil then inked it with a black pen. I hadn't done any serious drawing since I left school (so actually I have never done any serious drawing - ever), so I had to experiment a little with the lines. Fortunately I didn't want to achieve anything complicated, and I think the result turned out okay.

Then I scanned the drawing and vectorized the image using inkscape, a free vector graphics editor application. I can highly recommend that software. You can easily vectorize images with a few clicks and this feature alone is worth downloading and installing the programme. Vectorization results in a certain style that is somewhat similar to a filter in photoshop - with the additional benefit of vectors, i.e. the image being scalable.
Knowing that the posters would be pretty small eventually in 30mm scale I went with inkscape because I wanted to save the final image as a PDF so that the quality wouldn't suffer when decreasing the size. An apropriatly high resolution JPEG would have been as good, but if the image is a vector grpahic, then you can more easily experiment with the size.
At first, however, the vectorization mainly helped to improve the quality of the scanned (and slightly blurred) lines:

Left: Scan of original drawing. Right: Vector graphic

The vectorized head was then copied into Photoshop (yes, this way the vector information is lost, but that is not a problem). There I layouted the poster, added a background and text, added "colours" (levels of grey) to the head. The result was this:

The 'Wanted' poster

I then got the idea that it would be cool to have a second poster to sort of add depth to the little story of our crazy Jester. A circus poster announcing the show that stars the Jester who would later be hunted for his mindless crimes. This time the poster had to be more fancy - it was meant to attract the audiance after all - so this one was done in full colour. The photoshop version looked like this:

The 'Showtime' poster

When it came to creating the final posters I opened the images (saved as PNGs) in inkscape and vectorized them. Below you can see the Showtime poster as a vector graphic:

The vectorized poster

This was done with both posters and I actually did three more: "The Masquerade" (a play by the Gierburg Theatre), "Gierburg Needs You" (an "I Want You" derivation asking the reader to join the City Guard), and a rabble-rousing anti-Syr poster, discriminating the poor gypsies. The Syr one was done "quick & dirty" as I just searched the internet for a photo of a goat head. The others were done the same way as the Jester posters: drawing, inking, scanning, vectorizing, adding coloured layers in Photoshop and finally vectorizing the entire poster.

All the vectorized images were saved in one file, exported as a PDF for printing (saving as a PDF preserves the vector information). It is obviously important to print the posters with a good printer. The quality of the one I have at home e.g. was not sufficient. If you don't have access to a proper printer, I suggest looking for a print store or something like that. It is really worth it as in this scale and when printing full colour the difference really shows.

For cutting the posters out I used a cutting knife and a ruler. This works way better than scissors - even for edges this short.

Afraid of ruining my scenery I opted for sticky tape instead of the usual superglue to tag the posters to the walls.

The last step was painting highly watered down greys and browns on the posters to imply some weathering. You have already seen a sneak peek of the posters in Tom's recent post about the Gierburg Jesters:

Here is a close up on the posters:

The loony jester Ferdinand in front of his Wanted posters

Hokee pokee... The Jesters

2009-09-06T13:18:00.000+02:00

As bright a patch of sunlight on the streets of Gierburg as the Jesters are supposed to be, in too many ways they are the obvious symbol for the city – bright and gaudy from a distance, cold, mad, dishevelled stinking bastards up close, with all the humour of a six-week old corpse. Your average citizen shies away from a Jester in alarm or points one out to their children to stay away from.

Jesters have a special role in Gierburg. They are an important part of the background, but also relevant as miniatures in the game. Therefore, Jesters are iconic miniatures of the Gierburg universe and in this post I would like to show two of them.

The first Jester is the Omoklon, Twisted Jester miniature from Guild of Harmony. In Gierburg Cianty will be using him as "Til" to spread terror.

This is actually a superb miniature and I enjoyed painting it a lot. There is not much to say I guess, other than I tried not to make him look like the McDonald's clown, to which I came dangerously close at one point due to the red and yellow colour scheme. But I think I saved the day by introducing a brown leather jacket and the dagger and twisted facial expression also did their part. I am also quite happy with the shadow on his right calf, which turned out rather nicely I think.

The second jester is an old Games Workshop model for Warhammer from the Bretonnian Collector's range.

Now "unfortunately" this guy originally looks pretty jovial. Not exactly spot on for the "scray clown" that he is supposed to represent. So I tried to give him something that would betray (or failing that at least hint at) his twisted nature. So I painted his hobbyhorse as coldly as possible, trying to give it a worn and decaying look. Hence the brittle wood and the verdegris covered copper mane. This thing looks all but a toy... more like something he pulled out of the sewers and developed schizophrenic relationship to.

Also I think the pose comes in quite handy. This guy's next move could very well be to bash somebody's head in with that stick of his. Who knows what's in that bag?

See you next time!
take care,

-Tom

Tavern Staff of the Blue Wolf Inn

2009-08-31T10:30:00.000+02:00

Every town needs a tavern. And Gierburg is no exception! So today I would like to show you the lovely couple that own's the fine Blue Wolf Inn, that I painted. Both miniatures are from Black Cat Bases.

First, Stilhoufen, the owner. Judging by his looks, he may very well have spent some time at sea.

Up next, his lovely wife Bertha, a female cook:

I wanted to add a little extra to the miniature, to justify it's annoyed expression. I thought that maybe someone has spilled some of Bertha's stew/soup, and now she's coming after him/her with that pan of her's.

I wanted to give the spilled soup a little texture so I used some VMC Arena Oscura + VMC Smoke, which I let dry for a little while to make it thicker, and addded some very fine sand to it. I stippled the mixture on the base and on the pan and let dry. Then I applied a generous wash of GW Chestnut ink.

The staff in front of the Blue Wolf Inn:

That's it for today!
I hope you enjoyed this little update. Stay tuned for more.

-Tom

Yitu Interview about Mordheim and BTB

2009-08-31T01:04:00.002+02:00

Blogger Yitu recently did an interview with Tom and myself about Mordheim and Border Town Burning. You can read it now on his blog. His blog is mostly in German, but I suggested making the interview in English - for whatever it's worth.

There's some interesting stuff on Yitu's blog, by the way. I especially recommend checking out his interview with Steven Savile, author of the Warhammer novels Curse of the Necrarch and Vampire Wars.

So much for now. Tom, will be back soon with more Gierburg goodness. I am currently putting the finishing touches on the Warhammer Forge from Forge World, so that one will be up soon as well¹.

Til then

___________________________________
¹Update: Check out the finished forge here.

Citizens of Gierburg: Torturer and Jailer

2009-08-26T18:30:00.001+02:00

Hi, everybody! This is Tom reporting for Cianty's Tabletop Wargames Blog. I was recently invited by Chris to join his Gierburg project.

A (very) brief introduction to Gierburg

For those who may not know what it is: Gierburg is a tabletop game that is currently being developed by Chris, revolving around a great variety of skirmish-size missions in a cloak and dagger setting with subtle (but undeniable) elements of magic and mystery. What sets Gierburg apart from your run-of-the-mill hack-and-slash tabletop skirmish game, is its use of combat and its character-based setup (which involves RPG elements). Combat is a tool amongst others that players need to use wisely to reach their mission objective. Hence, characters in Gierburg have a variety of skills, feats and attributes that are equally important, depending on the challenges they face, not necessarily related to fighting, but also to moving, sneaking, talking and whatnot.

Painting minatures for Gierburg
- By "Boring" Tom

My involvement with Gierburg lies with making sure that all things with two or more legs are properly coloured and look "alive". In other words, I do the painting of all Gierburg models.

Here I will be presenting my latest creations. I will be posting the citizens of Gierburg that I am painting as I go, in a logbook-like manner (as some of you may remember from Cianty's LotHS Redbeard's Sea Dogs project that I painted).

Let me start off with Norris the Torturer and Scrote the Jailer, both from Heresy Miniatures.

Norris the Torturer

Scrote the Jailer

As with most Gierburg dwellers, I wanted colours to be brownish and organic. Loads of leather, rope and iron. I think this came out rather well here. The yellow cheese and the glowing incandescant metal rod (better not get into what this thing is for...) add a little colourful detail to the minis I think.

You may also notice the little triangles on the mini's bases. I added these for field-of-view-related reasons which will become apparent once the rules are published.

That's from me for today. I hope you like these two guys!

Check back soon, when I unveil the next two miniatures on the list.
Take care!

-Tom

The Burgomeister's Mansion Pt. 3: The finished Model

2009-08-13T10:30:00.002+02:00

Here is the last instalment of my Governor's Mansion report. After the review in part 1 and the modifications in part 2, I now present some info on how I painted the building along with some colourful photos at last.

Colours and Techniques
I chose a similar colour scheme to the one I used for the Blue Wolf Inn and other buildings such as the stable. I certainly don't want all my Gierburg buildings to look the same but for this one I did want the same colours as for the inn.
Especially for the roofs I think its nice to have a coherent colour scheme. It ties the buildings together and makes them look as "one" on the tabletop.

Timber
After showing off the Blue Wolf Inn on the Gidian-Gelände Forum, it was suggested that timber frames should probably be darker to imply weathering. Looking at the inn now the timber is probably too bright indeed. So for this house I only used:

Drybrush with Scorched Brown
Drybrush with mixes of increasing amounts of Skull White

To set the door apart from the timber frame I drybrushed an additional layer of Bestial Brown after the initial Scorched Brown. This makes the door brighter than the other wood, which seems reasonable to me, because I don't think the burgomeister would want the door of his mansion to be weathered and brittle.

I am pretty happy with the result. Careful drybrushing works really well on this model, because the wood grain on the beams is so nicely modelled.

Wattle and daub
Basically I chose the same colours for the wall filling as for the Blue Wolf Inn. The model suggests that the mansion was built with wattle and daub. I painted the wattle as follows:

Drybrush with Bestial Brown
Drybrush with Snakebite Leather
Drybrush with Vomit Brown
(Drybrush with Bleached Bone)

I left off the last step for the wattle on the first floor, because on the ground floor I found it to look too bright with the Bleached Bone on top.

Floor
The idea for the floor came from the amazing interor by Stony B. On the ground floor I first applied a heavy drybrush with Dark Flesh, then carefully dabbed the floor with: Tanned Flesh, Elf Flesh, Vomit Brown, Fortress Grey, Skull White, Chaos Black. Lastly, I used various washes of some of these paints.

I was mostly content with the result, but for the first floor I took even more time and dabbed more carefully, using the following colours (in that order): Tanned Flesh, Dwarf Flesh, Bleached Bone, Fortress Grey, Vomit Brown and Elf Flesh on the floor. At the end a dabbed heavily watered down mixes of the above colours (mostly Grey, Bone and Flesh).

Drybrush with Dark Flesh

Dabbing Tanned Flesh

Dabbing Dwarf Flesh

The finished Mansion
And now the finished model at last (click on photos to enlarge):

The Burgomeister's Mansion Pt. 2: Pimp My Home

2009-08-07T20:00:00.007+02:00

Welcome to part 2 of my extended report about my experience with the Governor's Mansion resin model. The first part was a review of the model, this time I present the changes and modifications I made to make it look better and more interesting.
You can see some WIP photos and read a bit of discussion on Tom's Boring Mordheim forum and Gidian-Gelände.

Walls
To make the inside more interesting, I cut walls out of foamboard to put in the model. Foamboard works nicely for this because it can be cut far more easily than sawing plywood. I applied a mix of white wall paint and sand to the wall to give it structure. I made three walls in total: one for the ground floor and the stairs (see further below) and two for the first floor.

Two of the wall sections are meant to end in the room instead of dividing it, so I used square wooden sticks for the wall endings:

Door
One of the walls on the first floor needed a door. I went with one of a couple spare resin doors I had lying around from Antenociti's Workshop. The problem was that I wasn't using the door on the outside of some closed building, so inside the house the door is accessible/visible from both sides. However, these doors are not modelled on both sides. I decided to glue one on each side of the wall. This obviously doesn't quite work with the door handle and hinge. So on one of them, I had to remove the knob and re-attach it, and remove the frame and put it where the bottom used to be:

The converted door

Stairs
As I said, I wasn't happy with the missing stairs between the two levels. I spent a lot of time pondering where to place stairs. Nothing seemed to really fit as the stairs were either directly in front of a window or somewhere in the middle of the room where it made no sense. I considered using a ladder instead to save space, even a trap-door. I finally decided for the most exhausting method at the least unlogical position...

I drilled and filed a hole through which stairs would lead up to from the ground floor. The stairs are from Pardulon; I bought them at this year's Hamburger Tactica convention.

Creating the hole was a time-consuming, arduous and nerving process. The floor is incredibly massive and I do wonder why Resina Planet wastes so much resin on it.

Interior & Falderal
Additional items like furniture, bed and books (from Thomarillion) and candles (from Olley's Armies, now out of production) enhance the model a lot. For photos of them, check back next week when I present the finished mansion.

The first floor WIP (note the stairs marker)

Up next: Photos of the finished building at last.

The Burgomeister's Mansion Pt. 1: Review

2009-07-31T20:00:00.003+02:00

Originally built at the end of the docks nearly 500 years ago, all that is left of the original mansion are a large pile of charred and useless ruins, pulled down and razed after a riot a century ago by the impoverished citizens in protest over a then incumbent’s decision. Where space is at a premium on the south side, it is odd that this large ruin still stands abandoned after so long. Folktale is that it is haunted by the Burgomeister of the time, murdered by the mob or that in the now buried cellars lurks a treasure of unimaginable wealth. The ruins are picked over from time to time by mystery and treasure seekers, who tend to succeed in doing little more than bringing a wall down upon themselves.
A new mansion was raised directly opposite this site and directly facing it on the instructions of the next Burgomeister. So the mansion is now on both the western and eastern sides of the City Square, except the new one has a wall and gates to protect it. Quite why the new mansion was built on the south side of the Desico rather than being moved to the northern side to be amongst the other municipal and noble houses is another mystery in Gierburg, but only to those who notice such things. It does irk the entitled to be forced to attend the Burgomeister in his house across the river where they might have to see the filthy gutter-scum or even smell them.

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The Burgomeister's Mansion is actually called Governor's Mansion and produced by Resina Planet. I made lots of experience and alterations with this massive 30mm resin model, way too much to squeeze in a single post. Therefore I chose to divide the entire report into three instalments. This first one is a review of the house, describing my impressions, thoughts and criticism. The next part will be about the modifications I made to the model (based on the criticism herein) and the last instalment is about applying paint and photos of the finished piece. Note that this review was written after having finished the house so that all my experience could be taken into account.

First Impression
I ordered the building directly from Resina Planet (€81,41 + €15,00 shipping¹) and it arrived one week later. My first impression was mixed, because on one hand I was a bit disappointed as I expected - or let's say I had hoped - that it was a bit larger. This is, however, mostly due to my own naivety, as I hadn't considered that the sizes given on the Resina Planet website would, of course, factor in the platform before the front door, the top of the chimney, etc. On the other hand, I was happy to see that there is nearly no assembling required as this is a 7 piece resin kit: ground floor, first floor, roof and 4 pillars. Seemed like a painless job...

You can see more pictures of the building in the Resina Planet gallery.

Resin Quality - Special Case: The Windows
Unlike the Blue Wolf Inn I had painted previously, this building has a lot more bubbles in the resin. Not so much on the walls but where it is most devastating: in the lattice windows.

First off, I have to give props for even providing lattice windows. I can't think of a more complicate and more beautiful window design. However, while the ground floor and roof are both mostly intact, the windows of the first floor piece had suffered heavily. When removing the flash some of the lattice broke off (see above photo). I understand that this is probably due to pure chance and bad luck, because most other windows are intact, but I do wonder, if this could be prevented by using a different (better?) resin. On the other hand, I guess it is nigh impossible to cast a full floor of a building including a modelled inside and detailed windows without getting a few imperfections here and there.

Left: Original window. Right: Fixed window with Green Stuff (the different shades of yellow are due to light conditions)

I spent a great deal of time fixing the windows with green stuff. Then I made something really stupid: I soaked the building in acetone to get rid of the mold release. I had painted the ground floor and roof before the 1st floor and washing with water was not enough. I had, still have, many problems with the paint peeling off of the model. This is incredibly frustrating and so I was looking for a better cleaner. Acetone was not a great solution. After soaking the piece for half an hour in acetone I realized that the resin was starting to dissolve! Disaster! The material was getting soft, could be bended and the windows were a complete ruin again (the lattices were too fragile to survive this experiment). After that I had to file off even the small remains of the resin lattices. There was no way I could repair them. After my initial shock and a bit of contemplation I found the best solution was to insert matchsticks. I am quite happy with the result - simple but effective:

First Floor
While I hate to sound too negative there are two more things that I don't like about the building from a design point of view. Firstly, how is one expected to get from the ground floor to the first floor? There is no place where a stairway could be fitted into the house. The same is true for the second floor/roof level which, if you look at it from the outside, is clearly intended to be a kind of attic. I can live with that, though, but the missing stairs from the ground to the first floor are really bugging me.

"How the hell did I get here?"

I spent a lot of time thinking about how and where to drill/file/saw a hole and insert stairs. Nothing really seemed to fit because of the layout of the ground where, where stairs would be directly in front of a window. I eventually figured out how to do it; you can read about it in the next instalment. I can already tell you that it was a lot of work, took a lot of time and there were moments where I was really wishing I hadn't bought the building. But all of this only makes a satisfacting end result all the more rewarding.

Plants
The second thing that I find really annoying are the completely unnecessary and horrible looking plants on the walls. They don't look like anything that I would want to see on my gaming table. I didn't take photos of the original walls but you can get an idea from this photo (from the Resina Planet Gallery section).

Photo with the vegetation on the side, from the Resina Planet gallery

I had already accepted that I would have to make sure that I cover them up completely with proper vegetation later as part of the finishing touches, when I decided to try and remove them. So I took a nipper, file and modelling knife and after lots of filing and cutting (more than you would want to do for a building of this price category) I ended up with this:

The walls after removing the plants

I think the walls turned out pretty okay - definately much better than I had expected at first. I was mostly able to restore the brickwork and timber. After painting you really can't tell that this was fixed so heavily (you can see that in part 3).

Overall detail and style
Despite the logical flaws in the arrangement (stairs, chimney) the detail and look of the model are stunning. The grain of the woodwork is perfect (see above photos) and makes careful drybrushing very effective and rewarding. The windows - as long as they are intact - have a beautiful lattice design and windows that allow looking in the building from the outside, that's pretty special. I also give huge kudos for the design of the roof. Often shingles are unrealistically large, which saves time when building the roof, but looks silly. These are perfectly sized. Painting them up properly (and individually) results in a stunning look.

Conclusion
All in all I am quite content with the house despite all the above mentioned flaws. The price is steep, yes, but considering that it has a modelled inside and that it is a huge and heavy resin piece, I guess it is pretty okay. There is not much competition on the market for properly sized 28-32mm buildings. However, the recently openend company Tabletop World is probably the new standard in that niche (read an interview I made with them here). I am not sure whether I would buy the mansion again, now that Tabletop World offers equally nice buildings. For a little more you can get the monstrous Ruined Coaching Inn and for a lot less the beautiful Blacksmith's Forge. From Tabletop World's current range the Coaching Inn is the only one with an accessible inside so that advantage of the Governor's Mansion still stands. However, I expect much more goodness from Tabletop World, probably clearly beating Resina Planet's mansion. Another competitor is, of course, good old Forge World with their impressive Coaching Inn. Looking at the photos of it, however, I see the same problem as with the mansion: No space for stairs and there aren't even holes in the walls for doors. So that, too, would require a lot of additional work.

I am somewhat tempted to buy Resina Planet's Abandoned Mansion and combine that with Tabletop World's Ruined Coaching Inn. That would make for a pretty sweet gaming table. But I will definately buy the ruined inn first and then see what else I really need.

Up Next: Read how I pimped the mansion.

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¹The price has since been lowered but shipping (even within Europe) is pretty steep so you at best order a few other items while you are at it (March 30th, 2010).

'Show Us Your Border Town Burning' Competition

2009-07-19T11:40:00.006+02:00

Some Mordheim news for a change... :)

Over at the Border Town Burning website we have announced a great competition about this alternate Mordheim setting. You can win lots of prizes such as new Chaos Dwarf models and useful Mordheim bitz and submit practically anything. Sound good? Head over to the BTB site or to Tom's Boring Mordheim Forum to learn more about the competition.

Small Dwelling House

2009-07-03T17:04:00.001+02:00

A few weeks ago I received this scratch-built house by Thomas Hahn (aka "Chicken") of www.tabletop-fantasywelten.de. Thomas is currently working on an Imperial table for next year's Tactica convention in Hamburg, which consists of similar buildings.

WIP of the house (click to enlarge)

I was honoured to be given this beautiful little gem and I really enjoyed painting it.

Finished house (click on the image to enlarge)

Roadside Shrine

2009-06-26T17:30:00.000+02:00

When I ordered the drinking trough for the Blue Wolf Inn from the2legends a couple of months ago, I also ordered this roadside shrine. Now I finally got around to assembling and painting it.

The shrine is a nicely designed four piece resin kit:

The kit unassembled and assembled

There are two issues I have with the model, though. Firstly, the back of the shrine isn't modelled, it's just a blank back (like what you usually see on the bottom of a resin base/model). This wouldn't be that bad, if it weren't for the bricks on the right side of the shrine, which are touching the back and creating an unnatural looking edge. It's just a minor critique but a shame nonetheless.

Far more annoying are the bubbles in the resin. Funnily there are no bubbles in the shrine or in the huge stones. But the small stones on the ground have suffered heavily from the bubbles. You can see it in the photo below.

Close up on the air bubbles

Honestly, I don't mind the bubbles that much. Of all possible parts the small stones are definaltey the best for them. On the table you will hardly take notice of them unless you know they are there.

Aside from these two things I am pretty happy with the model. It paints up very nicely and I am rather satisfied with how the weathering on the shrine turned out. All in all a recommendable model. Well worth the investment if you enjoy painting small models on a late evening with quick rewarding results.

And now, last but not least, for some photos of the painted model:

The Sea Dragons Part 2: Painted Pirates

2009-06-16T17:37:00.005+02:00

After part 1 about collecting the Foundry/Crusader figures for my Chinese pirate crew, the Sea Dragons, let's have a look at a few painted ones now.

I actually wanted to post these earlier (a lot earlier!) but I recently focused on painting terrain and scenery for my Gierburg project so these fellows were pushed back over and over again.

The Mates (Foundry)

Pirate Rogues (Curteys Miniatures)

For some reason I'm having problems painting the Foundry pirates while the Curteys on the other hand paint up rather nicely. Maybe I just forgot to paint minis after all the recent scenery.

Below you can see a few photos of some of the Sea Dragons in my first ship, the "Sea Dog" by Games of War. This ship is more apropriate for Redbeard's Sea Dogs and I hope I will get to purchase a proper Chinese vessel for this crew soon. I will talk about my entire shipyard in more detail in a future post.

All's Well that Hath Well

2009-06-07T19:56:00.000+02:00

As the post title's little alteration of Shakespeare's classic phrase suggests, a well is a sort of must-have item for a medieval/fantasy gaming table. I ordered the Warhammer Well from Forge World along with some other scenery.

Just as with the recent bloomery there is not much to say about the well. It is a nice model that was fun to paint - absolutely recommendable. Personally, I would have loved to see the well itself being removable from the base so that it could be placed on a flagstone area or something. But that's not really a big disadvantage and to most other gamers this will probably not matter - on the contrary, they might be grateful for the additional modelled ground.

In full Bloom

2009-06-01T14:00:00.001+02:00

I have finished another piece of scenery for my Gierburg table: the Warhammer Bloomery from Forge World. This review is rather short because there is very little to say other than that this is a fine detailed piece that I like a lot. It's a huge plus for me that this is a rather unconventional piece. You'll see houses from dozens of manufacturers, but a bloomery, that's really something special. And as usual Forge World live up to the quality that they are known for.

My only critique is that in the model I got, a tiny part of the hinge joint of the lever was missing/broken off (the bit left of the lever's anchor which is meant to hold the axis). I only realised this when I wanted to glue the lever on. It was no big deal as I could easily model the piece with Green Stuff, but still it was a bit disappointing and people who are completely unfamiliar with modelling putty would have probably been quite frustrated. I don't believe this to be a common deficiency, yet I found it noteworthy.

Aside from that I am totally happy with the model and I can fully recommend it. It's a great stylish addition to any medieval fantasy/historical gaming table.

And now for some pictures of the finished piece. I used the same foliage and flowers as for the Blue Wolf Inn and the Stable. I hope you like it. (Click on the images to enlarge them.)

Dead Men Tell No Tales

2009-04-27T14:42:00.000+02:00

Big Legends of the High Seas update! First off, the Pirates section has been updated with lots of goodies for the game:

Living FAQ
I have compiled an FAQ with things my group came across in our games. All answers have been confirmed by the book's author Tim Kulinski on the LotHS Yahoo group. If we come across any new issues I will add them to the list (hence the "living").
Update: The FAQ has been updated and is now also available directly from the Warhammer Historical website.

Random Happenings
In my gaming group we have been using a set of random happenings for some time now. I wrote these rules based on the Random Happenings article by Mark Havener and Tim Huckelbery which was first published in White Dwarf 240. Many thanks to my gaming group for playtesting them and to Stu Cresswell for his invaluable proof-reading.

If you have any feedback on these random happenings feel free to post them on the LotHS Yahoo group or just leave me a comment here.

Scenario: Dock Raid
This is a little scenario we have recently played in our group. Try it if you like!

Scenario: Mine
Another new scenario. Well, not that new actually. I originally wrote the scenario ("Horrors of the Underground") for the Mordheim supplement Border Town Burning and built some special tunnel tiles for it (check out the Mordheim section for photos). Since the scenario is so much fun and Jens from my LotHS gaming group wanted to play on the tiles, I adapted the scenario to the pirates setting. So if you enjoy playing something different, try the scenario. There are templates for you to print off in case you don't want to start building your own mine. :)

All available as PDF files from the pirates section.

Here are some (admittedly sub-par) photos of our session:

Jens deploys his Crew in the centre of the set-up and explores the tunnels from there.

I am the attacker and start at the tunnel entrance.

Steadily I move towards the opposing pirates.

In the meantime Jens' pirates are fighting off wolves (represented by Mordheim Chaos Warhounds, ehem..) and the angry bear (represented by a panda bear for BTB).

New Releases
Black Cat Bases had a ship on their workbench for ages (or so it seemed), but when browsing photos of Salute at gioconomicon.com, I saw a photo depicting resin casts of the model. So I contacted BCB about the ship and they said it would be out soon. Well, it still is not, but we can hope, right? In case the model looks familiar: you might have noticed the ship model in the Legends of the High Seas book on various pages (28, 41, 44, 46, 48 and 88).

Another ship that some people have been waiting for for a long time is the medium ship from Games of War. Despite promises that the ship will be out soon it still is not. At least someone seems to have seen it in reality at their store so it may come eventually...
Update: Yay, it's there at last!

Lastly, Sailpower have recently released a 28mm Great Sloop that looks really great.

So much for ships. Crusader have added a new Pirate Crew pack to their Pirates range and I'm still waiting for Black Tree Design to release the pirate miniatures range.

That's it for now. Happy treasure hunting!

Interview with Tabletop World

2009-04-10T22:38:00.000+02:00

Tabletop World is a new company that specializes on making properly sized 28mm tabletop scenery. Especially noteworthy are their authentic looking buildings which they create in a very unique way. As you may know I'm a scenery buff, an addict for high quality buildings (I'm speaking of Forge World kind of quality). So when I first saw some of their stuff on CoolMiniOrNot and their photobucket account I became a fan immediately. On the occasion of the launch of their website and online store I had the idea of making an interview where they could explain how they do their terrain. Luckily Mladen and Ivan of Tabletop World agreed to answer some questions.

cianty: First off, thank you for taking the time to do this.

TW: No problem, thank you for asking us.

cianty: So you have a very unique way of creating your models. Can you explain how you go about it?

TW: Well, the thing is, no matter how hard we tried, we couldn't find any realistic stone work on the market. No one uses real stones for making walls. It's always carved in some way, which often looks very good, but there is a small problem with realism. In our opinion, the only way to create a realistic wall is by doing it the same way it is done in real life. Making stone blocks and using them to create walls. That was the main reason we started creating miniature buildings. We really hope the public appreciates the effort behind it. When combining these stone walls with different materials like wood and plaster, with a little bit of creativity and passion for the fantasy world and its atmosphere, we came out with several life-like medieval buildings. We hope that they will spice up many tabletop battles around the world.

cianty: The buildings certainly do look amazing. How long does it take to make one building this way?

TW: We started to create buildings one year ago, and we have created only three of them so far. So it takes about four months for a single building to be completed, molded, casted and painted to be ready for presentation. So it's a lot of work and investments - like building material, all the tools, molding rubber, resin... - but we enjoy it and would have done it anyway, so why not try to offer it to the public.

cianty: Yes, it's great that you cast those models so others - like me - can benefit from your efforts. I really like the authentic look of the houses. Not only the stones but their overall structures. Do you use any particular reference material when designing a building? What is your inspiration?

TW: We're not using any references really. We get the ideas from some movies or forum discussions and put a few general guidelines on the paper. After that we simply start to build and the ideas come by themselves. We do what looks good in general. The latest building, the blacksmith's forge, started as a small shed with a chimney, and ended up as a quite big medieval buiding.

cianty: I love that building. On the 'what you get' photos I saw that the forge and the medieval inn each come with a miniature. There's a female inn keeper figure for the inn and a blacksmith figure for the forge. That's a really nice bonus. Will you continue to provide such extras? Have you any plans on producing a separate miniatures range to go with the scenery?

TW: Anybody who tried to model, mold and cast miniatures knows that they are very difficult to create. All those little pieces requires small two piece molds, and when casting, it often traps air bubbles in the face or finger region, so two out of three casts are unusable. It makes them hard and time consuming to cast. But they do make a building look realistic and make for a great size reference. We will definitely continue to make minis. We hope that this bonus to the buildings will turn a few heads towards our shop. As for the separate miniatures range, we don't plan that in the near future.

cianty: What material do you use exactly for casting the models - hard plaster, resin?

TW: We tried many materials and the conclusion was that the urethane resin from Smooth-On company (US) is the best choice. Low density when casting allows it to capture all the details, and hardness and rigidness when dry makes it a good material for the finished product. It's a bit expensive, but well worth it.

cianty: Can you tell us what buildings you have planned for the future?

TW: We don't know yet. Depends on the market. There are a few ideas like a couple of small town houses, wind or water mill, maybe a Mordheim ruin, but it will depend on what people want the most.

cianty: So you could be influenced by people sending you email requests for certain buildings?

TW: Not only that. We could be influenced by mails and forum comments, we love when people throw their ideas at us. It's like a free market research for us. That way we know what are the best projects for the future. And, of course, our biggest indicator on what to build next is what sells best.

cianty: Some companies such as Forge World or Resina Planet have buildings with a modelled interior in their ranges. Is this something you will consider for the future?

TW: We are thinking about it, and probably we'll do that. It makes the whole building more usable and therefore more interesting. One of the ideas was to create interior walls that can be fitted to any building already made. That's definitely something we will consider.

cianty: That sounds very interesting. I'd love to see that.

Your painted samples of the buildings are beautiful. Will you consider writing tutorials on how you paint the stones and wood? That fire in the forge also looks really great with the light reflecting on the stones.

TW: Thank you, the thing is the paint job does take much time and effort, so that's why there are two of us. We would be more than glad to share our experience on painting different materials with anyone who has interest in it.

cianty: Great! I think I will get back to you about that.

Alright, that it! Thank for your time and good luck with your new shop!

TW: No problem. Thank you for the interest.

The Stable

2009-03-27T20:11:00.001+01:00

Review: Warhammer Stable
ForgeWorld's Warhammer terrain range offers some of the best medieval fantasy scenery on the market. I had been drooling over the photos on their website for long enough until I decided to place an order. In this post I document my impressions and experience with the first ForgeWorld piece that I assembled and painted for my Gierburg table: the Warhammer Stable.¹

I have to say that I am not a few of Games Workshop's latest Empire terrain for Warhammer. It undoubtedly has a distinct style but personally I am not a fan of all the Sigmar comet symbols, skulls and other falderal. I have always loved Forge World's scenery, however, because of its more authentic historical feel.

After painting the first building for my Gierburg project, the Blue Wolf Inn, I decided it was time to get my hands on the Forge World buildings at last. The stable is a great addition to the inn (and easy to assemble) so I did that one first.

Contents

Main building
Roof
Beam
Wheel sprue with 2x 2 wheels

As you can see, aside from the beam which needs to be glued on the base, there is no further assembly required. A little filing off of some surplus resin and that's it. Well, if it weren't for two enormous chunks of resin at the bottom of the base (unfortunately I didn't take photos of them). It took a while to cut/file/rasp them off and it was rather exhausting, especially as I accidentally drove the building in my right thumb twice in the process, soaking the stable with blood even before it saw its first battle.

First Impression
These were my first impressions:

Larger than expected: Buildings tend to be smaller than you want them to be and this one was a nice surprise.
Great detail: The detailed stones in the walls and the structured wood are nicely done.
Lovely additional bits (on the model): There are two barrels, a bucket, a hay stack and hay spread inside the stable. That's some very nice extra detail that surely cannot be taken for granted.

Design
For this review I will grade the model as I described recently in the introduction of the Wrecking Ball Terrain Review article.
After the Blue Wolf Inn and the Burgomeister's Mansion (coming soon) I was somewhat apt to give a lower grade here. Surely a stable cannot compete with a huge inn or mansion in terms of impressiveness. But it doesn't have to and such a comparison would not be fair. It is a stable - that is what it is meant to represent, so it should be judged on that.

The stable is very nicely modelled: the detailed walls are sculpted on the in- and outside, the wood has a good structure, the roof sits nicely on the building and additional items such as two barrels, a bucket and a haystack round off the model. While it is great to have these items on the model it would have been better if they were removable. Especially the barrels get in the way of the brush when painting. Well, can't have everything, right? Ultimately, however, it is, of course, better to have these items than not at all.

Conclusion
The stable is a great building that comes at a very fair price (thanks to the current high of the Euro). The detail is pretty much perfect. The only deficits are the quality of the material. The resin itself is sturdy but at some places the paint won't stick (despite having washed the building prior to undercoating). Fortunately this was mostly only at the walls where the gray resin can be drybrushed to look like stone. These are only minor points though, and all in all the stable is nearly perfect: 4.5 of 5.

Painting the Stable
I really enjoyed painting the Warhammer stable. The roof and (structured) wood paint up nicely and fast so you get some good quick results that motivate further work. A first drybrush of Codex Grey on the stone walls soon gives you a rough idea of what the building will look like in the end. So you can get a great basis to work on after a short time so that you are motivated to go on and spend the extra time on figuring out how to do the stones.

Base/Ground & Roof
See the Blue Wolf Inn for how I painted the base/ground (Scorched Brown, Bestial Brown, Skull White) and the roof - I used the same technique and colours.

Stone Walls
Painting the stone walls took a lot of time. I found it much harder to get satisfying results on stone walls than on brickwork. Simple drybrushing is not sufficient as you need to mix and use a lot of colours and pay a lot of attention to the individual stones. This is pretty time consuming but, in my opinion, well worth the effort.

I tried to write down the steps I went through when painting the stones. I went through some "trial-and-error" but I think I figured it out alright in the end.

Drybrush with 1/2 Codex Grey, 1/2 Chaos Black
Drybrush with Codex Grey
Drybrush individual stones with one of the following:
- 1/2 Codex Grey, 1/2 Bestial Brown
- 1/2 Codex Grey, 1/2Vomit Brown
- Bleached Bone
- Fortress Grey
Drybrush with Codex Grey (tones down the previous layer)
Drybrush with Fortress Grey
Draw lots of small dots/stains/strokes on individual stones using one of the following:
- Vomit Brown
- Bestial Brown
- Bleached Bone
- Skull White
Combining these stains creates a nice realistic effect. Mixing the colours and stains should be done in a way that feels right. It takes a lot of time and I could have spent even much more on it.

Vegetation
Again I used the same as for the Blue Wolf Inn: flowers from Silhouette, ivy from miniNatur and foliage from Antenociti's Workshop.

The finished Model
Alright. Enough talk - here are the pictures, enjoy:

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¹Unfortunately the stable is currently out of production and not available in Forge World's online store (March 30th, 2010). Let's hope it returns soon!

The Wrecking Ball Terrain Review

2009-03-16T23:19:00.000+01:00

"The Wrecking Ball" is a terrain and scenery review I will be doing on the blog. With my current terrain project Gierburg I am purchasing so many buildings that I thought it might be useful to write proper reviews for them. Usually the review will be part of a post that describes my work on the building from unpacking to the last paint brushes. The review will be the last thing I complete in that post so all the experience I made can be incorporated into the final judgement. I won't confine myself to houses, though. There will also be reviews on other things such as e.g. ships, which I collect for Legends of the High Seas.

Grades
The grades range from 0 to 5 and have the following semantics:

5 - Perfect
4 - High quality (very good)
3 - Moderate, average quality (okay/good)
2 - Low quality (bad, weak)
1 - Very bad
0 - Unacceptable

Assessment Criteria
The following critera will help judge the quality of the piece, so that I don't forget any important factors. I am maintaining a file (call it a "database" if you like) with all the terrain pieces for easy reference and comparison. I developed the following criteria by doing comparisons of scenery pieces I already have and which I am working on so in a way the system has proven to work in practice.

There are two main categories - design and material - with four subcategories each.

Design
This category deals with factors concerning the style and design of the building.

Size: I like properly sized buildings. Of course you can make any 28mm house look big by using 20mm figures, but I'm looking for proper 28-30mm scenery with believable proportions.
Style & Detail: This is very important to me because I am very demanding and choosey about this criterion. However, since the level of detail can often be told from sample images before the purchase, it is unlikely that I will be giving a grade lower than 4 here. I will only purchase scenery that I'd grade 4.5 or 5 and this will usually remain and at worst be modified by -0.5 if the piece looks slightly worse in the flesh than expected.
Assembly: Can the building be assembled easily? Do the individual parts fit together nicely or do I need to fill gaps with Green Stuff?
Interior: If the building has an interior (usually accessible via a removable roof) then that's a plus. Since a modelled interior will usually mean a higher price, I do, however, expect to get a high quality interior if there is an interior - anything else would be frustrating. A lack of interior does not not normally influence the rating in a bad way.

Material
In this category I grade the quality of the material with which the model is cast.

Sturdiness: I don't care whether the building is made of resin or some kind of plaster. What I do care about is whether it is sturdy, and if pieces fall off during game play then that is unacceptable.
Quality: Bubbles can occur in any material and I hate bubbles. They are not only annoying on themselves but they can cause serious damage to the detail of the surface.
Flash: Is there much additional effort required to remove unwanted flash or mold lines? Let's hope not!
Paint stickiness: It may depend on whether you have properly washed the model prior to base coating, but some resins really don't like paints and the colour "falls off" like it was antipolar magnetic. So will the colour stick or will you strike the colours?

Note that the model's price is not included in any of the categories. Ideas of what should be an apropriate price for a building varies from gamer to gamer. From my experience most people are not willing to pay a fair price for high quality scenery. So with the opinions (and pain barriers) concerning acceptable prices varying so much I chose to not factor in the costs of the model. It may however slightly influence the overal grade (see below).

Calculating the overall Grade
In order to calculate the total I do the following:

Calculate the mean for each the Design and Material category.
Calcualte the weighted mean of Desin and Material (Design 60%, Material 40%).
Adjust the result by no more than +/-1, based on personal opinion/feeling

The last step allows me to adjust the grade a little to factor in my overall satisfaction based on things that I could not take account of in the categories (e.g. price and shipping costs, packaging, bonus bits that came with the model). Mostly I will be rounding up or down to the nearest full (*.0) or half (*.5) number.

Example: The Coaching Inn (the2legends)
In a recent post I described how I painted the Blue Wolf Inn, a great resin building I got from ebay and wich was previously produced by the2legends. The building was already assembled but still I could assign points and grade the model. Among a few other pieces (some of which I am currently working on) the inn is used as a reference model.

So this is what the scores are (for more comments check out the post about the Blue Wolf Inn):

Yes, that's a lot of top marks but there's no need to deny points when they are well deserved. Praise where praise is due. I am that happy with the model. But I can promise some of the upcoming models will not come off as well. ;)

If you have any thoughts and comments about the review system, feel free to let me know!

The InnFamous Wolf

2009-03-09T19:14:00.003+01:00

Of the two rival coaching inns in Gierburg the Blue Wolf is renowned for their fine menu of foods and drinks, every mouthful is more than equal quality to the fare at the Golden Knight, if at more acceptable prices than its rival which prides itself with being the place to cater for more noble and refined palates. If the Blue Wolf is less choosey about its clientale, the better reputation it has received is a price its owner and proprietor is willing to pay.

The Model

The inn is a typical medieval half-timbered house. This highly detailed 32mm resin building was designed by DIMA (thanks to Samy from Gidean-Gelände Forum for this info) and used to be available from the2legends. I was looking for the source of the house for quite some time as I got it from ebay and was interested in knowing who the manufacturer is. The model is not available for sale anymore, however, as I stated above, it used to be and you can still see a gallery entry for it at Grey Funnel Line.

You might notice the striking resemblance to the Warhammer Coaching Inn from ForgeWorld. Also the emblems are from the Mordheim scenery sprue. These are most likely the reasons why the model is not sold any more.

For more photos of the unpainted building have a look at this thread on Tom's Boring Mordheim Forum (ENG) or this thread on the Gidian-Gelände Forum (GER).

Painting the Blue Wolf Inn

Painting the inn has been a real blast. It was easily the most relaxing and satisfying paint job I have done to date. The high detail of the model made painting really easy and I could quickly achieve satisfying results, which was, of course, an immense motivation.

In the following I will give some short describtions of how I painted the individual parts of the house. This is not only a helpful guidance for those who want to paint their own buildings in a similar style - for me this is a necessary reminder of which colours I used so that I can recreate the effects when painting other houses so that I can maintain a degree of consistency when I want to.

I am using Citadel Paints by Games Workshop so all names are referring to those. If you use something different such as Vallejo you will have to "translate" them. There is a very useful Vallejo-Citadel Paints Comparison Guide on the Miniature Wargaming website.

I undercoated the house with black so you could add that as a step 0 to all the painting guides.

Timber
Some may find the colour of the timber too bright as it would probably be more realistic to have a dark brownish almost black to represent the weathering. Well, the Blue Wolf Inn has just been built... in a way... ;)

Drybrush with Scorched Brown
Drybrush with Bestial Brown
Drybrush with Snakebite Leather
Drybrush with Bleached Bone
Carefully drybrush with Skull White
Paint the nails black
Paint small dot of Boltgun Metal

Brickwork

Thorough drybrush with Dark Flesh
Apply one of the following to individual bricks:
(a) Drybrush with 2/3 Dark Flesh, 1/3 Blazing Orange
(b) Drybrush with 2/3 Chaos Black, 1/3 Regal Blue (optionally add a bit of Red Gore)
(c) Drybrush with Bestial Brown
Note: In order to save colour I continuously add water to the mixtures so that I get more out of them. This results in watered down mixtures, obviously, but that is not a bad thing as it also gives more variance to the bricks even while applying only one of the above three colour combinations.
Carefully drybrush with Bleached Bone
Lastly, add little stains of Codex Grey to a few random bricks

Daub (Wall Filling)
Using highly watered down base colours is key here. After the first coating with Codex Grey you then already have a very irregular wall colour and I was, in fact, considering to leave it at that. But I decided to add brighter colours to give the walls more depth. After the initial grey you have to speckle the colour on the wall to achieve the irregular effect. A bit of colour here, a bit there... Always make sure that there's plenty of the previous layers still visible.

Watered down Codex Grey
Watered down 1/3 Codex Grey, 2/3 Fortress Grey
Watered down Fortress Grey
Watered down 1/3 Bleached Bone, 2/3 Fortress Grey
Watered down 1/2 Bleached Bone, 1/2 Fortress Grey
Carefully drybrush with Bleached Bone

Windows
After painting the entire glass of the window each following layer is a little smaller and in the centre, so the last layer is just a little drybrushing in the middle.

Fill with watered down Regal Blue
Drybrush with increasing mixtures of Shadow Grey
Finish off with Shadow Grey and a little Fortress Grey

Roof

Drybrush with Scorched Brown
Drybrush individual shindles with Dark Flesh
Drybrush individual shindles with 1/2 Scorched Brown, 1/2 Chaos Black
Drybrush with Skull White + tiny bit of Scorched Brown
Carefully drybrush with Skull White

Base
Before painting the house I detached the huge base that had been glued to it. This allows me to place the inn directly on the gaming table when I want to (e.g. in the city) or place it on the base when using it on a more wilderness type of table.

I drybrushed the base with Scorched Brown, Bestial Brown and Skull White mixes. The Stones are Codex Grey and Fortress Grey with a final light drybrush of Skull White.

A little Something Special...

A building like this benefits a lot from additional items and gimmicks. Here is what I did:

Sign
The Blue Wolf sign is from the Mordheim building sprue that came with the Mordheim boxed game. Scenic items that represent wooden structures, such as this sign, which have very fine detail, cannot be simply drybrushed like I did with the inn's timber framework. The wood grain on the sign has to be painted explicitly with fine brush strokes. The colours used, however, are the same.

Drybrush with Scorched Brown
Bestial Brown
Snakebite Leather
Bleached Bone

I drybrushed the metal with Tin Bitz and then a little with Boltgun Metal, leaving some spots in Tin Bitz to create a simple rust effect.

For the wolf itself I used:

Regal Blue
1/2 Regal Blue, 1/2 Shadow Grey
Shadow Grey
1/2 Shadow Grey, 1/2 Codex Grey

Drinking Trough
I added a drinking trough I ordered from the2legends. This nice piece was sculpted by Elmar Fischer of Stronghold Terrain.

Sacks, crates, barrels, ...
The sacks and crates are from Antenociti's Workshop. The crates were painted exactly like the inn's timber (sometimes leaving out the Snakebite Leather step for variety). For the sacks I used the following:

Drybrush with Snakebite Leather
Drybrush with Codex Grey
Drybrush with Bleached Bone
Drybrush with Skull White (optionally, for variety)

The bucket and barrel are from Games Workshop, the goods stack (barrel, sack, crates) is from Pardulon.
Flowers
It was very important to me to use some additional "planting" to make the model more realistic. It adds a great "diorama feel" to the scenery. I was looking for suitable flowers and finally chose to try the flowers from Silhouette that I ordered as a set from Menta-Modellbau. They are also (individually) available from the Max Paint Shop or Battlefield Berlin.

Although they are meant for 1/87 scale models I am very content with them. They are perfect for 30mm scenery.

Lastly I wanted to add some ivy to the wall. After a little research I found that you can either use miniNatur's ivy (available from Max Paint, Grey Funnel Line, Microconstruct, Battlefield Berlin) or etched brass (dt. "Foto-Ätzteile") from g-modell (some of them also available from Max Paint). The latter are far more expensive so I opted for the miniNatur product. To save shipping I waited a couple of weeks until the Hamburger Tactica 2009, because I knew that Grey Funnel Line was attending the show so I could just buy it directly there.

Stable
The Warhammer Stable from ForgeWorld's Warhammer terrain range is the perfect addition for the inn. As I write these lines the building is lying next to me because I just received my package of ForgeWorld terrain this morning. Look out for a review on their Warhammer houses coming soon here on the blog (update: here it is :).

The finished Blue Wolf Inn

Click on the pictures to view them in original size.

I hope you enjoyed this first building of my new gaming table. In the pictures above the inn is obviously not in its proper setting yet as this is the first piece of many for the table so the terrain you can see is from my EiF/BTB Mordheim board. There is much more to follow so you will be able to watch Gierburg grow with each new piece and the next building is already in the works...

Update:
I am happy to see other people find this tutorial helpful. Check out these works:

City House (Ziterdes) painted by ACE: photos here
Chapel (GW) painted by Jorisch: photos here