"Denizlere Hakim Olan Cihana Hakim Olur"

"He who controls the seas, controls the world."

Avci Class Destroyers

Here they are - the first squadron from my Dystopian Wars Ottoman Naval Support Group boxed set.

I didn't paint them as per the "codex", choosing a blue that I hope mimics the slate blue of the Blue Mosque. The colour I picked is FolkArt Light Periwinkle, which looks about right after a wash of Army Painter Dark Tone. The white is Martha Stewart Crafts Wedding Cake.

I chose to keep the scheme simple; there are just three non-metallics and three metallics: brown for the deck, white for the "walls", blue for the roofs, and silver for the guns and ladders, copper for the pipes, and gold for the finials.

The sculpts are incredibly detailed and almost daunting to paint, but at this scale I reckon I can get away with my usual block-and-wash method.

Next up should be the surface skimmers.

Frostgrave Playtest 3

With my wizard and apprentice painted, fg and I met for another session of Frostgrave, this time with some rule updates/amendments.

We used the Dungeon Command tiles fg just bought for this session:

The two warbands enter a dungeon.

My dwarves, led by my new figures, bulked to maximum size.

fg's Necromancer has decided to hire goblins instead this time.

"Ooh, treasure!"

"Okay, maybe that wasn't such a good idea." - A genie is released!

For the second game we decided that the magic glyphs printed on the tiles are teleporting portals which will teleport a figure to another random glyph, and that each turn a magical construct will "spawn" at a random glyph.

The Necromancer casts a 'Wizard Eye' to get line-of-sight on the dwarves without exposing himself to attacks.

The dwarven Runesmith thwarts him by casting a 'Fog' spell in front of his 'Wizard Eye'.

Goblin and zombie attack a dwarf warrior while another goblin tries to drag the treasure away.

The use of teleport portals means the warband members are scattered across the board.

The dwarven Runesmith teleports to the Necromancer's exit area, hoping to rob the goblins of their treasure. On the bottom left corner, a dwarf warrior fends off a magical construct.

There were some rule changes as the author considered the feedback from the playtesters. To me, the biggest change in the dynamics came from restricting figures carrying treasure to half-moves - this made it possible to let others do the sometimes risky work of collecting the treasure and just robbing them later. Slower movement rates also compelled other figures to hang around the treasure-carriers to provide security, and makes the game very different from the mad rush to grab treasure and then run off before the opposing warband can get you.

With fg's wizard hitting level 20, we have decided to restart the campaign with new warbands, perhaps wizards from other schools of magic.

Thanks, Google...

As if my dwarf runesmith apprentice wasn't having a hard enough time...

Scibor Dwarf Sapper OR Frostgrave Runesmith Apprentice

As promised, the second Scibor figure:

Again, this is a very nice sculpt, although there were some casting issues in the form of flash and bubbles. The scroll he holds in his right hand was actually a stick of dynamite (as are the ones in his backpack you will see below), but I shaved of the fuse and I think it looks passable as a scroll. I painted his cloak grey as those of my dwarf rangers, and I think he can do double duty as a messenger/courier for my dwarf army. I gave him a standard blue robe but added a yellow trim to the hem as a mark of elite status.

"It's getting dark, master - do we really have to explore the ruins at night?"
Master and apprentice use backpack from the same range, as evident by the stitching.

As my Frostgrave warband is dwarf-themed, and my wizard is an Enchanter or artificer type, I am thinking of adding some sort of Iron Golem ("construct" in game terms). Time to trawl ebay for some cheap plastic figures then...

Me experimenting with a bit of creative lighting and post-processing.

Big Brother is watching me

I got a notification from Google this morning telling me I have an unread Auto-Awesome photo. I clicked on the link and this is what I saw:

Apparently Google is adding animation effects to my photos because it knows what I want even when I don't?

Scibor Dwarf Miner OR Frostgrave Dwarven Runesmith

As many other wargamers who have blogged about their New Year resolution, I too am aiming to buy as few figures as I can this year. I try not to start any new army, but additions to existing armies is fair game.

With that excuse, I bought myself a dwarf miner figure from Scibor to use as the wizard of my Frostgrave warband.

The dwarf wizard searches the ruins of Frostgrave for ancient magical artifacts.

As my left foot is in a cast, I couldn't get out of the apartment to spray-prime. Fortunately, fg brought over some brush-on primer so I could get some painting done. I really like the result and will definitely be using brush-on primer for my more detailed figures from now on.

The figure was a nice sculpt as usual from Scibor; the beard was a delight to paint. I did the minimum work on the figure: snipped off the pipe on the back of his hat and also candle on the front of his hat and filled in the bowl of the reflector, and he looked less like a miner and more like an Orthodox priest. He had a vest of scaly leather, which I painted in the copper that I use for all my dwarf figures - I guess it was made from the hide of a Copper Dragon. I was tempted to convert the pick-axe to a hammer, but then the pick-axe looked nice and I figured it wouldn't look out of place on a wizard who is exploring an arctic environment.

Hmm, is this the way? The backpack is well-sculpted. I stained the hem of the greatcoat with some Devlan Mud.

Or is it that way? I should really have brought a compass...

I've also ordered the Scibor Dwarf sapper to be his apprentice. Hopefully that figure arrives soon and I can get it done this week.

Getting Set

I managed to paint the Harbinger of Set figure by Crocodile Games this week, which I am planning to use as Set himself for our OGAM games. He is on a resin base from Fantascape.

Now the reason why I had the time to paint him is because I am now at home nursing a broken foot, specifically the fifth metatarsal. The injury occurred on New Year's Eve, so I spent the last day of the year having my bone set. Getting about the house is a bit of a pain now with a bulky plaster backslab on, but hopefully I can switch to a lighter plastic cast or a boot next week.

Meanwhile, I hope to prep the Egyptian infantry which will be part of the same warband. Will take me a while and I may have to hand-prime instead of spray-prime them, but one does what one can.

Here are a couple more pics of Set.

"Come at me, bro!" said Set to Osiris.