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Hendrids Wargaming Blog
Blood on the streets of Mordheim |
The empty Market, but not for long |
The South of the square was empty of combatants and Andy's Kislevite's moved out of the streets to the south west and probed north and east into the open market area's relatively free from enemy's. Leigh's Bretonnians to the North west positioned themselves for a foray into the centre while watching for enemies moving towards them and Ian's Chaos forged to wards the centre and tentatively moved to cover facing the Bretonians. All the warbands targetting warp stone for quick and easy pickings while watching to see where the others would head.
The Middenheimers move out to engage the Reiklanders while skirting out to hoover up some ripe Warpstone |
Middenheimers engage with Reiklanders |
Meanwhile Ian's Carnival of Chaos moved cautiously out in the centre of the table keeping to the cover and moving to hover up any shards available and turning to face Leighs Bretonians to his right. Leigh also fairly cautious with Chaos to his left and moving in and Kislev to his right though more distant also kept to cover and set up in cover for taking pot shots at the approaching horde and picking up any nearby warpstone. While the getting was good Leighs mounted knight made a staraight beeline for the centre of the board to pick up the spare warpstone while the centre was clear and bods otherwise engaged.
Bretonnians position for the oncoming tide |
Andy's Kislevites also generally kept to cover initially though moving wide to tempt Rics Middenheimers out and perhaps pick any unclaimed warpstone in the area and moved slowly north towards the Bretonnians.
Middenheimers slowly taking the worst vs Reiklanders |
With the game direction fixed, the warbands then downed and entered into the matter at hand. The Middenheimers and Reiklanders engaged with missile bods adding support while the Reiklanders kept a weather eye on Chaos to their rear and the Middenheimers sent a wide scouting foray towards the Kislevites.
Chaos and the Bretonnians faced up with the Bretonians laying down as much fire as possible while Chaos slowly advanced keeping to cover as much as possible before charging in. The Kislevites a bit further away advanced mainly towards the Bretonnians and approaching Chaos hordlings and a countering group to the infringing Middenheimers.
Kislevites and Middenheimers battle in the market |
The Middenheimers and Kislevite skirmish was brief and costly to the Middeneheimers with the Kislivites quickly gaining the upper hand though this did seperate some of the Kislevites from the main event to the north.
The melee between the Reiklanders and Middenheimers to the east was protracted but ulimately fewll in favour of the Reiklanders with minimal losses, the spreading out of the Middenheimers ultimately proving to be spread to thin and Ric's Warband was the first to reach break point and decided to voluntarily flee the field with reasonable booty in tow.
Middenheimers moving wide and spread out towards the open market |
The onslaught of the chaos hordes and a rapidly declining situation for the Bretonnians with Ians Chaos troops moving in enmasse and coming to blows and the Kislevites moving in to his flank, Leigh took the 'live to fight another day' option and voluntarily fled as soon as he was able flowing several losses to melee.
Kislevites close on the Bretonnian/Chaos melee and join the fray |
With the three way melee resolved with the Bretonnians departure, the Kislevites and Chaos forces engaged in a hard fought melee but with nearly a quarter of the Kislevite forces delayd to the south and slow to get into the fray and the Chaos troops consolidated more or less the tide of the melee though at first to and fro quickly moved in Chaos's favour.
The main struggle draws to a close with the Kislevites and Chaos in full melee |
Following on from my recent experiments with modelling and casting resin bases, I had decided I wanted to try an alternative casting material and aware that I had used polyester resin previously (only because that's what I had lying about) which is not the first choice I procured some fastcast polyurythane resin along with resin dye to see how that turned out.
First attempt using the previously made base moulds was partially successful as I mixed too much resin, basically more than I could pour before it began to set. Living up to it's name as 'Fast Cast'. What I managed to pour worked out fine and trying again with half the amount of resin produced a variety of bases fairly easily and a lot quicker and less smelly than the polyester, all of which was nice.
The castings are a lot sharper, as the filler I had used in the polyester casting did blur things a bit though I did like the 'feel' of the castings produced. Polyurythane is obviously the way to go and I picked up some alternative 'white fastcast' at the same time to see how that works out as this has a slightly longer pot life.
I also knocked up a quick mould to cast up some small scatter terrain bits to individualise the various castings which I had deliberately kept fairly blank, especially so I could tart up bases as required with these decorations. This mould worked out fine and I can now produce rubble, scatter and battlefield detritus to my hearts content. A few choice bits are already added to the Kroot Killteam bases which are currently in progress and will post up soon.
First figs receiving newly cast bases |
Having been getting into Killteam recently and investing in the 'Into the Dark' set when released last year I had started building up the teams included in the box with the Kroot band being the first to be assembled.
I had also invested in the 'Imperrium' magazine during Covid as a occupational therapy activity and had started assembling some of the new marine figures and a few others and intended to use the terrain bits included with the magazine for use with Killteam scenario's.
On assembling the first figs and basing them I had decided I wanted to get some modern or techy basing for the figures to difference them from other 40K ranges I already have. Having some of the GSW rollers from a small previous project ,I had tried to put on some rolled results on to the standard plastic bases for a couple of the SM figs but this prooved to give a very thick look to the base which I really didn't like.
Having never really liked the plastic bevelled edge bases from Citadel since first slotta base release back in the day and preferring a fairly thin square edge to my basing I decided I would sculpt up and cast some basing for the Killteam and SM figures and would add in some alternative basing for some of the other bits picked up recently like for my Sisters of Battle and fantasy skirmish bits too.
I had tried some bought resin bases previously from a couple of manufacturers and though the sculpting is OK and often very nice for the chosen products I have found the quality control over the castings is usually fairly poor with a general extreme variance particularly on the thickness of the castings and sanding the the extreme ones to a cosistent level a big pain and extremely laborious.
Selection of scuplted blanks |
First up was to produce some blanks and I duly purchased some MDF circular 2mm bases to give a regular size and applied various textured clay pieces to the bases with a bit of chopping and changing and mixing the various textures to give a bit of variety and embelishment for some of the plainer basing.
A fair bit of finishing and minor sculpting and ensuring all the blanks were of suitable sizing and edges square etc. followed.
First moulds and casting results |
Next up once I was happy with sufficient variety of bases of varying sizes (28mm, 32mm and 40mm) I made up some moulds with some silcone I had left over, enough for 3 sizable moulds.
The only resin I had to cat up first time was some clear water polyester resin, which although stinks to high heaven does give a fairly sharp cast result but is quite plasticy and hard so I added in a small amount of marble filler which makes the resin a bit friendlier and a much nicer feel. Also makes the casting a bit easier to work with though does blur the casting results slightly.
First bases cast, cleaned, and undercoated |
The whole process though fairly labour intensive, especially at the beginning in the blank preparation, is simple enough and fairly enjoyable. I picked at the production in small bursts so as not to sicken myself with extended work.
I also limited myself to the number of casting blanks scuplted so I could produce enough bases for the figures I had already assembled and was wanting to get painted and into some gaming, though this has still been a few months in production over all.
Ready to get painting |
Quite happy with the results of the project thus far and had to stop myself in sculpting up more and different bases, but have a few plans for some more and hopefully better basing.
The character and larger models I have planned will be individually scuplted as not wanting to make up castings for ones I would only use once or twice, but I intend to incorporate bits of the castings I have done so as to unify the band or army feel for all the figures.
Will post up the finished articles in due coarse.
Small update on a recently very quiet blog.
Have been painting up some scatter terrain for Kill Team and general Sci-Fi skirmishy things and just completed the plasma pipes which I have left in their constituent parts so I can use them in any way suits the game in hand.
On other news I have been getting some gaming in and working on (as usual) multiple projects since last updates and am looking to get a few more posts in to update progress and gaming I've been managing to get in.
More on this shortly.
Bit of a photo op this time around as I have been playing about with the old camera to see if I could improve on my miniature photography skills a bit.
Mixed results and going to play about a lot more, mainly learning on how my camera works, but having fun in the learning.
My chosen topic this time around was with my Tau Hunter Cadre for Kill Team as these were readeily to hand as I've been mainly playing 2nd Ed Kill Team at the club recently, so they presented a ready subject to snap at.
Quite pleased with the photo results but more to play about with both in subject and technique and decide what I'm most happy with.
Think the photo results had a better turn out that the Hunter Cadre have had on the table top, but that's another story.