Dear god, where has the year gone?
As an update, still fighting through the house shenanigans and waiting for some more paperwork to go through. That said, I’m still working to push forward, try out new things and keep on the grind for the old. I’m also feeling a little bit better about things in general – maybe its the tweak to my work week so I don’t spend it all by myself, maybe it’s that melancholic part of me that likes the colder days and listening to the rain coming down outside. Mostly because they give me an excuse to stay in and paint.
Let’s take a look at what I go up to last month:
Napoleonics
Yeah yeah, Napoleonics. Although I’m still not quite to the point where I’m going to start buying fancily dressed men (my Dastardly Regular Opponent was instead the one that fell on that particular sword), I had a really good time. I go into more details in the post I wrote (linked below) but I think the biggest thing from it is actually it’s got me thinking more about the larger scale games – O-Group is suddenly something I’m interested in trying, controlling things at that size rather than simply pushing around a platoon or two.
FDM Printer
Probably the biggest change that happened this month was the arrival of a new toy, the final part of the 3D printing journey in terms of capability. My Creative Regular Opponent sold me an Ender 5 Pro, one that had been well-used and since replaced. For someone just starting off with attempting filament printing, it was a pretty good investment that (once I’ve fixed some of the teething issues) will definitely expand the type of stuff I can print. I’ve already shown off some of my attempts to use it in the Weekly Updates (as you can see below).
I also already have an idea for a project I want to try, which always helps when learning new tech. I want to try making my own 3d version of the BPRE buildings – working from the templates given, adding some basic 3D details and making sure they are 3D printable at the end. I’m sure there are other options for it but exercise in learning.
6mm Moderns
Of course, something else the FDM printer is for is expanding what I can do with the ever-growing 6mm game investigation I’ve been looking at. I already have some resin prints from Lazy Forger but there are some things too big for the print bed of even my Saturn. Filament provides less detail but is slightly more economical, so if I’m hammering out compounds to fill a board for 6mm, it’s going to hurt the bank less. Still working on getting the printing right (hence the spider webs and the shift at the bottom) but looking forward to printing some truly titanic combat areas.
Tiny terrain needs tiny tanks to fight over it, so this month I got to work actually getting some printed. Previously, I’ve experimented with printing the turret and hull separately, but the fiddliness of actually painting the two parts dissuaded me from progressing past the “squeezing at tiny tanks” stage. Instead, I assembled the models in chitubox and save out the combined file to print instead. For the moment, I have only done the “default” option (turret forward) but I’ll be adding a few extra ones. These vehicles are going to be the first part of two Bazistani Kingdoms, all ready for a small war over oil. The T-72s are from the ever-useful Bergmann while the Chieftans (complete with added Peak cupola turrets to make it look slightly different) come from the BAOR set from Bobmack (rescaled down from 28mm).
Something I’m really interested in with 6mm is doing it all via 3D printing as a test to see just how far you can get. And so far? I’m right on track.
Youtube
I mentioned last time about wanting to do more videos more often. Kicking off a weekly update has definitely reignited both some hobby spirit and some desire to push forward the video-making – you can tell by the fact I’m actually making thumbnail images! I’ve done three weekly updates so far, which I’ve put into the playlist above – please ignore the volume issue in episode one, I corrected it by the second one.
Despite having done these shorter-form videos, I’m still working on longer videos. I’ve got a few things for the Contract in Awbari on the way, although finding time to do the recording is something I still struggle with a little bit.
Spectre Insurgents
The Spectre Insurgents turned up literally the day after I posted the last update. These guys are some really nice models – you can see the progression in them from the original insurgent figures Spectre released back in 2015, both in terms of sculpting style and the gear they are rocking. I added a few rucksacks to them – I’ve been afflicted by the curse of needing my guys to look a bit more equipped and ready for battle.
All the positives said I do have a few issues with them I’ll go into more detail in the impressions post for them. Most of them actually have more to do with the business model of Spectre – the quality of these cast models isn’t that far different from what I’ve been able to print myself from the Spectre Patreon, while buying cast adds some annoyances (bendy barrels, delays, limited numbers) that printing myself fixes – for a start, my Quality Control department has far less to deal with. But we’ll see how I feel after I finish painting them (and after I take a look at the Local Forces that arrived on Monday).
Fantasy
The other side of my painting for the month was getting a few more fantasy figures painted. There is something different about painting moderns versus painting fantasy – fantasy has bigger colours, less camo and more interesting patterns. I get to be a little more exploratory, playing around with things like the woad tattoos on the archer on the left or just painting fun models.
3D Printed Dwarfs
Speaking of fantasy, I also did some 3D Printing – namely a crap load of Dwarves. My Dastardly Regular Opponent has been wanting some dwarves for his own fantasy skirmishing needs and so I have been using Highland Minaitures’s rather excellent range to fill his order. I still need to get them cleaned up and ready to go but I’m already impressed with just how good the Highland figures look, both in terms of design and how 3D printing can get that quality off the hard drive and into 3D. I had a few minor misprints that I need to correct, but otherwise, I’ll be looking forward to when he gets them on the table.
Skirmish Sangin V2
Finally – I actually played a game this month. I’ve been writing up some tweaks to the beta rules of Sangin V2 (specifically looking at things like spotting and injuries). They have been sat in the pile to work on down the line, but a brush with a certain video game set my mind alight and I just needed to get a game played. Luckily, my former housemate is a veteran of Inquisitor and Dark Hersey, so I was able to persuade him to pick up the D100s once more and jump back into something new. We both had a really good time (always a good sign) and I’m already pondering what’s going to happen next.
I’ve got a battle report coming up later this week, just need to finish off the last bit of writing for it and you’ll hear the story (or at least the first part) of Captain Bashim Al-Zuri’s multi-national hunt for a wanted criminal.
Other Things
- Modern Warfare 2 came out and it’s great! I had a great run through the single-player campaign and the multi-player really gets the part of my brain that loved Modern Warfare 2019 even before we got stuck at home during the Pandemic and it was the main way I stayed in contact with my friends.
That’s all for this month – I’ll be posting my plans for the month over on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/ChargeBlog. As I’ve always said, the Patreon is a tip jar, letting me help to cover some of the costs associated with the blog and help me get my hands on the 3d printing STLs I use. I want to start providing more stuff for the Patrons (more than just a name at the end of a YouTube video) and the campaign above will end up being something that the patrons see first.