2016 Year in Review

This was an exciting year for me with a lot of completion on a lot of projects. Very productive. So here is a wrap-up for the year, as well as an update on my many projects.

Zone Mortalis Tiles
I spent countless hours casting the bits, gluing them together, and painting these tiles. It's a total of 18 tiles with doodads, and they have gotten some play time. Our local game store had an event where my tiles handled about 4,000 points between 4 players. I am surprised at how well they handled the punishment, and the players were all impressed with the table. They are a little brittle, but that is due to the material used, where I went a little cheap. A lofty goal in the future will be to create a fantasy themed set of tiles, but I may splurge for the good dental plaster if I can find out where to get a hold of some nearby.

The Coven of Verminlord Skrax (Warhammer 40,000 - Dark Eldar Haemonculus Covens)
This was quite a project that yielded a proud achievement for me. A lot of effort when into the modeling and painting and display board, not to mention the wonderful comic illustrated by my brother. It was all paid off when I won Best in Appearance at the 40k GT Harvester of Souls. A trophy which is still proudly displayed in our living room.

Jarom's Orks Commission Here and Here
The undertaking for illustrating my comic was no small feat, so I gladly paid in painting small portion of Jarom's Orks in exchange. Jarom also took Best in Orks at the same tournament.

Gorkamorka
My brother and I haven't really acted on our plans to run a little Gorkamorka campaign yet. Both of us live a distance from each other, and he has been busy with a job enough as it is. So Gogmagog's Questing Knights (Mutiez) and Da 'ard 'eads (Gorkers) will remain unpainted for now. I am looking forward to fielding Da Hukka Trukka on the table sometime in the near future.

Heavy Gear Blitz!
My Heavy Gear plastics kickstarter delivered this year. I now have a lot of plastic sprues of tiny mecha. I have been a very long fan of Heavy Gear's setting, but never got a chance to play it in any form. This game seems pretty solid, and my brother has expressed a desire to give it a shot. I look forward to that sometime next year.

Deadzone
My addiction to small skirmish games continues even still. Deadzone is an example of my enthusiasm that builds in a game in intense bursts. Then it dies out. I am still up for playing games with it though. So I have several small armies built for this game, but the beauty of most small skirmish games I own, a lot of the figures can be used interchangeably. So even when I am not playing Deadzone, I can still use the terrain and minis for something; like Rogue Stars... but that's another post for another day.

Warhammer Quest: Silver Tower
The three of us (Jarom, Timo, and I) have been slowly working our way through the trials of the Silver Tower, and watching the story unfold and our characters progress. Jarom is playing an Orruk Warchanter, Timo is playing a Chaos Lord, and I am controlling the Order side with a Cogsmith and Lord-Relictor. What's even sweeter about this is how little money I have invested in this game and we are getting a lot out of it.

Censers and Tocsins (Warhammer: Age of Sigmar - Nurgle Rotbringers and Clan Pestilens)
This project will likely be set on the back burner. I love the idea of a Nurgle themed fantasy army, but until I get that burst of inspiration for it going again, I won't be doing much with it for now. I do believe I have some good ideas for the Nurgle Rotbringers at least. The Skaven, however, I can only think to make everything as-is. Which is fine for most, but I become passionate about something when I can think of a unique angle to take with it.

Forgesworn Eternals (Warhammer: Age of Sigmar - Stormcast Eternals)
I am proud to say my entire Forgesworn Eternal army is completely painted (barring some basing I still have left to do). Not something I can say much of for my big armies. I really don't plan on adding anything to this. I feel I have gotten all the minis I am interested in. I was considering some Dracoth Cavalry to make more dire bear riders, but the problem is finding variations of suitable bear heads, of which I have only really found the one. But for now I'm good.

Forthammer Clan Throng (Warhammer: Age of Sigmar - Dispossessed and Ironweld Arsenal)
Not all of my Warhammer Duardin are among the ranks of the painted, but a good portion of them are. I experimented with a unique paint scheme for dwarfs that I think has paid off to a color that complements my Forgesworn Eternals. All I have left for this LVO army is some basing, and maybe a display board. Carry-on luggage restrictions are becoming an issue.

That sums up this very awesome year. In the new year I will outline my goals for 2017.

Zone Mortalis Tiles Project - Storage Solution

I finally figures out a decent method of storage and transportation of my tiles project. I simply stumbled on the perfect size plastic storage bins from Walmart.

I am guessing any brand will do, as long as it fits the above dimensions, and ones with lids that lock on via clasps is ideal.

I just simply lined the bottom with some foam material quilters use to cushion the bottom, and that is how I store all 18 tiles and doodads into 4 boxes. Definitely takes up some space, but not as much as them laying out allover my floor collecting dust.

Zone Mortalis Tiles Project - Doors and Doodads COMPLETE

A huge wave of relief is upon me as this Zone Mortalis tiles project is complete. But really there is one more thing, to figure out a means of transporting the tiles. But there's no casting or painting involved in that project so I am comfortable with it.

So here are some more pictures with the new doors and doodads in action, but this time with my Deadzone figures. I built this project with that game in mind too.

8x Large Doors, 8x Small Doors, 2 double doors for the cell, and a Core with 4x gangplanks that lead to it.

The planks lead to the core where a Forgefather Engineer begins working on it.

I wonder what lies in Cell 13...

Oh no...

This can't be good.

I have 3" squares gridded off with subtle black lines. The idea is so these tiles can be used for Deadzone as well as whatever else, like 40k.

Zone Mortalis Tiles Project - Tiles COMPLETE

A HUGE portion of my Zone Mortalis tiles project is complete. The tiles. I am really happy with the way these turned out, so I took out some painted minis and my phone and did some action shots to show the potential of these tiles.

All 18 tiles!

Warplord Tich has found a vital part of the hulk's systems.

Tau expeditionary force find a defensible position.

This main control panel show the hulk's orbital and internal schematics.

A skirmish breaks out in front of the main pump control station.

Warplord Tich meddles with the stasis tanks.

An Inquisitorial retinue sniff out heresy and whatever knowledge they can recover.

Dare the long corridor to get to your objective.

The Acolytes encounter the Verminlord's minions in one of the ship's many many rooms.

Navigate the twists and turns to make your way through the hulk.

A possible view from your force in starting position.

It's not all claustrophobic corridors. Some rooms open up to large areas.

Control panels dot the many corridors of the hulk. The one is locked under Inquisitorial control.

This one has been captured by Verminlord Skrax' minions.

This has just been in the warp too long.

A possible escape hatch, or a lead to more of the hulk.

Through the viewglass there lies commotion...

Thankfully it's locked in the prison cell.

The vigilant servo-skull continues to document and scan the mysterious hulk. This is only the beginning.

I am almost done with the entire project. Next I just have to finish up the many doors and doodads for the tiles. More on that soon!

Zone Mortalis Tiles Project - Painting Progress

I have been slowly working on painting all 18 of those monstrous but really cool tiles. This is a little update so you can get the idea of what I am going for with the colors and style.

4 year old for scale.

I still have a ways to go, some washes and more colors. Also I need to paint up the door pieces, of which I am thinking of a military green. When I played a few games in these with my brother, and everything was grey painted, we found it difficult to pick out the doors in it all. So only the doors had to be a different color than the rest of the floors or walls.

The Holy Grail of Terrain Building!

I have found the best spray paint for terrain builders. It's affordable (About $5 a can), it does a nice even coat, and best of all:

IT DOES NOT MELT FOAM!

I couldn't believe it either. Rustoleum Flat Primer is what I have been searching for. I stumbled on the discovery when I was testing spray on primers for my Zone Mortalis tiles. They have foam parts, and I worried about the spray paint eating into them, and weakening my whole project. So I ran a few tests. I got a couple brands of craft acrylics and painted a coat on some pieces of foam, and used a spray paint I already had, Krylon brand, and this is what I got:

It ate right through the acrylic coat and into the foam. I figured I would need to do a couple more coats of the craft acrylics and test again, but I was running low on spray paint anyway. So I got into home depot and found the Rustoleum, thought I'd give it a try. Then I did the same test again, and got this:

This one looked much better. Then I noticed that it wasn't eating through the places where I didn't get the acrylic undercoat. So I got 2 pieces of foam (one pink and one blue) without paint on them and tried the spray:

I could not believe it. This is the stuff I have wanted all along. This makes my job so much easier. I was worried that I would need to paint in all the nooks and crannies of the tiles to get the foam, potentially covering up some of the details of the plaster bits with the thick acrylics. Now I don't need to. I took that can and sprayed about 5 tiles before it ran out.

They look so much better even just primed. Naturally I bought 5 more cans of this stuff then next time I found myself in Home Depot.

Zone Mortalis Tiles Project - 16 down, 2 to go

Here is my completed 4x4 Zone Mortalis board. I just now have to get started soon on the insurmountable task of painting it all.

The last tile I made has this pit in it, and this will be for several uses.

Just a pit, to restrict movement, but not block LoS. The control panels on the corners can be used to call an elevator if the scenario demands it.

The pit can also house an objective or asset depending on your narrative or scenario. I have my Riptide in here to show scale, but the true reason for this pit will be revealed in a later post.

I built this spire specifically for the pit, and it is meant to have control panels on it. This could be an objective or just something to provide cover in an otherwise LoS-free tile. If this is to be an objective, I would rule that a model's base needs to be touching it to activate/control. The reason for this is the control panels on the corners of the pit....

...are used to extend the walkways to get to the objective. Or these could already be there for ease.

And I did say I would be done when I made 16 tiles, but I lied. I realized when I got these 16 done, that if I made just 2 more, then I could still do either a single 4x4 table, or I could do two 3x3 tables, which is something that would be ideal if I ran some sort of event or campaign. So I have laid out plans for 2 more unique tiles, because I already have 2 of each Forgeworld tile designes. These 2 new ones will be different and add some variety to my tiles.

When all these tiles are painted, I will do a little featurette on the details and designs of each tile.