Song of the Deep Empire - Playtest

Over the weekend I had some friends stay over for the solar eclipse. We were lucky enough for our town to be smack dab right in the middle of the line of totality so we got to see the entire eclipse in all its glory. So to celebrate this wonderful celestial event (which some weirdos mistakenly predicted to be an apocalyptic event), we played out another apocalyptic event in the making:

Again, I am absolutely kicking myself for not having taken any pictures of the battle in progress. But I can at least give a little report on it. My friend brought several pre-painted D&D minis from his own collection and we hammered out a themed 300 point warband:

Left to right: Incubus Warrior, Elemestra, and Naga Warrior

Jake the Savage Slaver and his 5 Slaves

This faced off against a Deep Empire Rise:

Top left to bottom right: The Bride, Lord Mo'clor'rath'kritlor, Karkarion Warrior, 2 Spikeshell Warriors, 2 Naiad Warriors, Naiad Piercer

I had just finished painting these guys before he came over. They certainly set the tone for the entirety of the Deep Empire. I will do a quick report of painting bones minis: I certainly love it. It is true that they do not need to be spray primed. I just coated them with a some of Reaper's brush on primer, and they painted like a dream after that. The bottom 3 of course are not Reaper bones, but are from Mantic's Kings of War range. I bought a small kit of them off of ebay because they could fit the deep empire very nicely. As for basing I just used a mix of spackle(filler), sand, and paint. The idea is a marshland theme. For the grass tufts I used a very creative method found here.

Dried grass tufts being made from a really cheap paintbrush I already had.

Anyway about the battle. It was a lot of fun, and got really intense. His Gorgonites got beat out in the end though, and part of the failure was due to the encroaching waters, which is sort of the idea. The waters are intended to make the campaign an uphill battle for the participants. However I did figure something out: placing D6 water tiles onto the table each time a Personality activates is way too quick. The waters came up fast and after a few turns the board was pretty well flooded. I will be reducing that likely to D3 water tiles per Personality activation, or even just each time the Deep Empire player begins a turn, bring in D3 waters. This is why we are experimenting with this. He did have some cool moments though, like his Incubus Warrior leaping from building to building, and the slaves surrounding and taking out the Karkarion Warrior in a mass of naked bodies.

I would like to get some more of my Deep Empire models painted before I get the chance to play again.

A Better Small Flying Base

This is a common sight for my Tau at least, and it pisses me off how much it happens. All it takes for one to drop a mere 3' from the table, and the shattering happens. Having clear acrylic bases to be invisible on the board is nice, but not worth all this trouble. So I have found a better solution.

GW's 32mm plastic bases are the same diameter as the small flying base! This is important because of the following steps:

Start by taking a large paper clip and straightening it out. Then using some pliers, form a little shape like this. Find a drill bit with about the same size as the paperclip, then drill a hole directly in the center of the 32mm base.

The shape you made in the paperclip is to provide strength for it to glue into the inside of the base. I used some superglue for quick place. Superglue is not strong enough in this case, but it works for holding it there.

Next I filled in the whole bottom of the base with hot glue. This did 2 things: hold the paperclip in place even better provided some really good weight to the base. Flying models can tend to be top heavy and prone to tipping over. This will counter some of that.

Once the hot glue cools and sets, you should have penty of wire for mounting. You merely need only to cut it short to the height you need, and drill into the bottom of the model and glue the wire in it with superglue.

I am eventually going to do this to all my drones. Even my planned Drukhari will have some Hellions in which I am basing them this same method. In case any of you are wondering about the strength of this, I have had models based this way fall from the table several times, and the bits of the model break before the basing does. I'll take it!

Treating Reaper BONES minis

If you have been following me for a while, you would know I actually really like Reaper's BONES line of minis. They are cheap, there's a huge variety, and have a decent amount of detail, but there are problems with them, namely the soft plastic they are made of. But I don't fret over that as with a little creative hobbying, you can get around the flaws. So here are some tips I have found for preparing BONES minis for tabletop.

TIP 1) Replace Bendy Bits

 A common complain are the bendy and warped weapons. Some guides will tell you to stick them in hot water, bend it back, and let it cool. But for me, don't be afraid to replace them with whatever bits you got. Superglue works best for this as plastic glues don't work on BONES materials.

In this case I simply chopped off the spear bits, drilled holes in the hands, and fed in this bit from the Drukhari Venom kit. Common fantasy orcs are different than the 40k Orks are some of us used to. A spear with skulls on it seemed to fit.

 
TIP 2) Base them on Washers
BONES minis are made of a very light weight material, and have little bases built into them already, but they are rarely big enough and for especially tall minis they are prone to tipping. So put them on something cheap and weighty. Put them on washers.

I got these at a local Home Depot. When looking for good washers, you want ones with the right size on the outside and as small a hole inside as possible. The washers also don't need to be especially thick. I got these ones because I can use them for 25mm, 32mm, and 40mm bases respectively.

For gluing them on, I would recommend E6000 or GOOP. You can get either at any hobby story and they are essentially the same things. They are very strong but have a long set time and cant do detail gluing very well. But it is great for gluing BONES to washers. Hot glue isn't strong enough and doesnt glue to metal very well, and superglue is too brittle. E6000 does great with metal.

This gives us a decent amount of weight on the bases and holds them upright fairly well for cheap. Again, E6000 works great on metal, so even one of my old Reaper metal minis has a nice stable base now. But what about the leaning model syndrome?

TIP 3) Prop them up with Paperclips
Some models have weak ankles. Literally. They lean forward too far or back too far. Again others will tell you just to put them in hot water then correct them, but I found the strongest solution is to use the same stuff I pin models with. Paperclips.

When painted up in a flat black, the pins should be fairly invisible.

TIP 4) Transport them on Magnets
With metal washer bases and light plastic minis, they have a very good advantage with magnets and transportation. I found a cheap plastic container with lid at my Walmart. I wanted something about 3" deep, so it could hold my bigger bones minis.

Next I got this magnetic tape. I hear you can buy sheets of this stuff instead of the tape, which may have been better. Crafters usually use this to make refrigerator magnets.

Line the bottom of the container with the magnetic tape. I found the sticky material on the back of the stuff to be incredibly weak, so I just glued the strips down with the ultra strong E6000.

And now you have a decently stable carrying case for your minis without having to bother with foam trays or liners. Granted the magnets are not strong enough to hold the minis when they are really shooken around or bumped upside down, but for normal jostling and transportation, it's definitely good enough.

Basing my Duardin and Forgesworn Eternals

For a while I was debating on how I would base my Duardin and Stormcast Eternals. I wanted to try something other than sand and paint. I also know I wanted to try some snow, using a handy little tip I discovered to make snow paste out of a mixture of baking soda, white acrylic paint, and PVA glue (I'll do a post about that method when I get to that point).

Then I saw this kickstarter, and fell in love. I've seen the basius kickstarters before, but as with most things from over the great pond, the price range keeps me at bay. However this new kickstarter is doing smaller 50mm square texture pads at a much more affordable price range. And it was this pad I am totally stoked about:

So I will be using that texture on all my bases to join both armies' themes together, and add some snow on top of that. I can also see some use for this on my display board.

So check them out. For about $15 US (incl. shipping and handling) is about how much one pad will cost. They still have about a week to go and are way past their goals.