Guild House from Stronghold Terrrain

Again it's been quite a while since my last post. However, this time with photos of my newest addition to the everlasting Gierburg project: I finally finished the Guild House by Stronghold Terrain which I bought at this year's Tactica show.

Firstly, the contents of the kit:

Except for the resin roof and base all pieces are made of hard stone plaster. I'm not a fan of plaster in general but this one's of good quality. Except for the weight which you just can't help with this material the structure is good, no bubbles or defects.

The walls have a nice system of fit-together-edges which makes assembling the model really easy. However, the pieces don't fit together 100% percent so require a bit of filing (which doesn't work too good on plaster, at least not like resin). The few gaps can be easily filled with modelling putty - if they even bother you enough to do so. I didn't mind them enough to become active there.

Here are some photos of the finished house. I am not very happy with the stonework. It looks slightly better in reality - not as prosy as in the pictures -  but not nearly as great as the sample photos on Stronghold Terrain's studio paint job. I will probably revisit the model at some point and try adding some pigments.

Here are two comparison shots with the Blue Wolf Inn and Tabletop World's Medieval Inn from my cabinet.

All in all I am quite happy with the model. The stairs, separate door and little shed make the house look interesting - without these additions it would look a bit dull. Personally the stonework's structure didn't really suit my painting skills, but that's a totally personal issue. The roof and woodwork is really nice and detailed. The size is good for 28mm models (see comparison shots above).

Now I'm really looking forward to painting the Stronghold Terrain Townhouse as well.

On How To Be A Merchant in Mordheim

I'm not making any Mordheim related posts anymore let alone update the Border Town Burning website, but I wanted to take the time to share this: Over at Tom's Boring Mordheim Forum a user called TheEnemyWithin posted a very interesting strategy guide for the Merchant's Caravan warband from the BTB supplement. He has some very good ideas to share - some great tips on how to make some additional money in the beginning and what official Hired Sword is the best addition to the warband (I'm not giving it away here). A must-read for any aspiring merchant planning to conquer the Old World or Cathay. So check out The Merchant's Guide to Profiting in the City of Mordheim!

Back and Looking Forward

Yay, I'm back! It feels like it's been ages since I last painted something but now there's new stuff coming soon at last. It feels great to be painting again and I can't wait to post some of the stuff I'm currently working on. More soon.

Hamburger Tactica 2012

This Saturday I've had a great time at this year's Tactica wargaming convention in Hamburg. As always it was a great event with amazing gaming boards and participation games, impressive dioramas and many vendors with lots of opportunities for shopping.

Now to start off with a few photos:

This Dystopian Wars table was mind-blowingly beautiful. The creativity that went into the buildings, the colors, the set-up... simply stunning! More at the Tactica Blog.

Thomas (aka "Chicken") of www.tabletop-fantasywelten.de, who presented a Warhammer table last year, brought an even more impressive table this time: a great warhammer fortress! Unlike the previous table this one's perfectly playable with removable sections and all. (Again, more at the Tactica Blog.)

I only managed to take part in one participation game, a three-scenario mini campaign of Vampires vs civilians/hunters using the rules of Songs of Fear & Faith. These rules are very well suited for this kind of game as they are easy to pick up while still allowing for a proper variety in the characters.

A highlight was talking to the guys from Stronghold Terrain and buying a few of their excellent buildings. They had beautiful display pieces of their buildings at their booth:

 I was delighted to spot different sets of cobblestone streets among their preview products of which I had to buy two. I was told that they'll be up at the Stronghold online store within the next few months so be sure to check that out!

I was also happy to find Brother Vinni at the Tactica. I have been wanting to buy his Plague Doctor model for a while but since PayPal doesn't work in Russia and services like MoneyGram are horribly unaffordable I just couldn't pay for it before.

So lastly, here's a shot of my purchases. More coming soon with details on the individuals buldings of course.

Mordheim Jester

 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 Lappat aka jar of Massive Voodoo:

Broadsides & Boarding Parties

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

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.

Update April 6th, 2014: Joao has just restarted with a new blog: http://fistful-minis.blogspot.co.uk - so keep an eye on that!