VASA Archangel

Inspired by the rekindling of the Void community online, and this post I wrote for the Viridian Wars blog, I finally got round to painting one of my favourite models from the Void range (I have a few). The Kev White Archangels are sush simple yet elegant sculpts. The minis were so successful that they were used in Urban War for a while too, before being replaced by (to my mind) inferior scuplts. For a great many years I did not paint them, as I didn't have the skill I to paint the wings in the way I knew I wanted to.


I finally bit the bullet, and painted one. My inspirational bird of reference was the Kingfisher.

I doubt I'll paint a whole unit in this sceme, but it was fun to do one.



CS1 Brainwaster

There is a renaissance in old school gaming right now. With Oldhammer sites springing up all over the place. Frostgrave (and other Osprey games) inspiring gamers to get our their old lead, dust it off and put it on the table.

There is also a resurgence in old games taking on a new skin.

This post is where these two trends meet.

I am a writer for the Viridian Wars blog, which up till recently has been a once a year kind of thing, but I have been inspired to write few posts recently. Much of this inspiration has been due to me finding new uses for old minis that I love, which include a lot of the old Void range. I have ot, however, been getting in more games of Void 1.1. Nor have I found players in this city with which to do so. What I have been looking to play, however, is Rogue Stars, one of the afore mentioned Osprey games, and SLA CS1 a game from the second group which takes a much loved (cult?) RPG from the 90s, and remakes it as a modern skirmish game.

The melding of these forces has led to this.

This is me playing around with the filters on powerpoint to make a mash up of a recently painted figure from the Void VASA range of Militia, and pasting him on top of the original front cover of the SLA RPG. Of course, there are those amongst you who didn't need me to explain that, but for the younger readers, indulge me.

Here of course is the original artwork, and paint scheme inspiration for the figure, along with some better pics of the figure himself.

Of course, he is still to be based. but the painting is complete. I rather like the way the shading on the coat is based on the artwork, rather than the lighting as I would normally do.

::: Welcome to the World of Progress :::

Scifi minis

Summer is winding down, and that seems to have meant I get back to the painting table. With the heavy reference on Sci-Fi gaming in my last post, it only seems fitting that the minis I have painted this week are in that genre. These are some old minis, that have been bumping around in various lead piles for quite a while Fist off, we have two old Void VASA minis, one civilian and one marine one marine. The marine was painted and previewed a while ago on some Facebook groups, but not, apparently here on my blog. She has now been transfered to a better base and finished off. The Civilian has been painted up with the thought of him being a SLA Operative for Cannibal Sector 1 despite the lack of apparent armour. He is generic enough to fit in with Rogue Stars and also the Black Ops mission I'm planning too.

One commonality these three minis have is that I busted out some freehand on all three, to greater and lesser success. The Escher Juve, for example has a knife, sponsored by MAC knives of SLA industries, whereas the Op at the start has kneepads with various freehand attempts (can you tell which film, recently available on neflix I was watching when I did the right kneepad?). The tiger pelt helmet is the freehand I'm most proud of. despite the success of this attempt, I'll be unlikely to complete the rest of her unit in the same theme.



VASA: Major Kali

May was an okay month for painting,  ut a crap month for getting the posts out with what I've been doing. I think I may be stretched a little with the number of blogs I'm trying to cover on top of all the usual life stuff that insists on getting in the way of painting and blogging. May was also the second instalment of the WM/H league at my FLGS. I managed to play two games in total and painted up two minis for that. That aside, I have been distracted some very old minis I dug out for Void.

In part because of the Viridian Wars blog, and in part just because they are beautiful, and yet simple figures, these are what have been taking up my painting time.My post on Kali on that blog can be read here. It goes into different details that just the painting, so go check it out.

I am very happy with the way she has turned out, especially the two brush blending on the purple, and the way her hair is in the same colours, but clearly separate. I was uninspired by the base she is on, so I have prepped another, and will try to re-base her shortly.

Void 1.0: Viridian Nightshade.

My postings over at the Viridian Wars blog has got me back into painting some of my minis for the game. This is a limited edition miniature, released for Void 1.0. More info can be found on the mini and her background, both in and out of game in the post I made about her here. She's been hanging around in my lead pile since I brought her back from my parents attic a year ago.

Here, I'll just show pictures of the mini, so as not to duplicate the information posted elsewhere.

She came with a normal round 25mm base, which I decorated and painted to match the rest of my Viridians (as is the colour scheme for her uniform) and the second batch of I finished recently, even though her base is of a different diameter. I'm quite happy with how this base blends into the rest

Viridian Wars

As if my attention wasn't being fractured enough these days, I have found yet another way to procrastinate and eat into my painting time. I requested to contribute to another blog, the Viridian Wars, and the author there, Richard, has graciously accepted. So, I am now an author on that blog, and have already planned out a few posts on a variety of topics in that universe. The first real one will be posted tomorrow morning.

What does this mean for posts here? well nothing much. Normal service will continue. This does not even mean I will not be posting Void material here, not that I have done much of that in the past. I will still have the odd post with painted minis, and even, if the stars are right, battle reports and the like.

What I will try to post over there are more in depth articles on the game and the miniatures, that I would struggle to justify posting here, due to limited interest in the game. I have already got a few articles lined up, and they should come out in the coming months. These posts will likely inspire me to paint up more Void and Urban War minis, so expect a few of them to make an appearance here too. A little cross-pollination if you will.

After that, who knows, I may move on to cover the daughter game Urban War, another one that I have a passion for that struggles to find its voice on the internet.

So if you have not already, and you are interested in the game, the minis or the setting, go along and check it out, follow and most importantly comment on the blog, as it is through the interaction with other bloggers we thrive and build our community.

Trip back to the old Country, Part II

Earlier this month, I had a second trip back to the UK in almost as many months, this time for a happier occasion (more weddings, less funerals, but you'll have to look elsewhere for the pics of all the kilts).

I will however use this picture from my visit. It will of course be clear to you all why this Glaswegian relic of a former age has geek cred.

This time, a much shorter time spent in my parents attic, but with more space in my suitcase. Fortunately I had put things in order on the previous visit, so only had to pick up a couple of boxes and stash them. I also found out that there's a new games cafe opened in Edinburgh, right next door to the flat I sold there not a year ago! Why couldn't that have been there at the same time as me? Anyway, on with the haul.

First off, the things I picked up from storage:

Urban War rules (in magazine form). These were too heavy for the last trip, but with all the UW minis I have brought over, I figured it was time to have the rules to hand. Of course, I have access to pdfs (downloads here), but I do prefer paper versions, despite the space they take up.

Void TAV MKIII resin kit. This is more for Void than for UW, but I do so love the mini, and I intend to use it in some fashion for UW even though I don't think vehicle rules for the game exist (I'm sure it won't be too hard to house rule something). The kit i have differs slightly from the one pictured in the link.

Empire Army. Lastly I picked up 2 boxes of old school WFB minis, mostly metal, with a few plastic pikemen in there for good measure. These will be used for my Bretonnians, and/or Empire, in the case of any local WFB gaming. I say army, but really it's all infantry, as I left my few knights and artillery pieces. There will surely be more pictures of these in the near future, especially as there are some nice oldhammer minis amongst them.

Whilst there, on a quick visit to Static, I also bought:

MacBeth. I have had one eye on SAGA for a while, even going so far as to painting up some Vikings, but the release of a Scots faction, with a leader as infamous as MacBeth at the fore could not be passed up. Of course the real MacBeth and the Shakespearean version are not to be confused, as it seems the original version was actually quite good at the king thing.

Napoleonic British Peninsular war Officers. There's always room for more Napoleonics. I'm sure these can be used to back up various of the rank and file figures I already have, be they riflemen or highlanders. Planned for use in Drums and Shakoes or Sharp Practice.

Highlander Missile Troops (bow and musket). From Warlord, these are kind of multi use,

I also bought and had posted to my parents house, some Prussians from the war of 1866, when North Star were selling off their old stock to make way for new sculpts I think. I'm sure I can put them to good use in something Victoriana, for example, as troops for IHMN. The Jaegers from this batch are already prepped and primed and in the process of being painted, so more on them soon.

A visit to WH Smith's meant I picked up the trio of magazines (Wargames Illustrated, WSS and Miniature Wargames). The first two I can get here, eventually, but the third is not an option. I was less impressed with Minature Wargames this issue (I have only read two issues), as it held less of direct interest to me.

To round out the wargaming related purchases, I picked up another book on Churchill at a discount book store (there's not enough of those over here), this time more on his political career than his military career, but it fit with my other current reading. Be on the lookout for a review of Young Titan soon.

My my, the summer just got a whole lot busier with all this stuff to work through!

Void Miniatures: Viridians

I have been aware of Void since its inception. A game by i-Kore, a Scottish Company, who went through a host of games prior to this, and are still regenerating in a Doctor Who fashion, with new figures and games based on the same property. Now we're onto Urban War and Metropolis (with plans for a 10mm battle game), but I'll go into those in a later post. This post is the first of a few where I go through the minis I brought back from Scotland on my last trip, photographing those who have been painted, and cataloguing what I have to play with and still to paint.

The first minis I bought for Void when it came out back in 2000, were the Viridian Shock Marines. I really liked these minis, much more then the current sculpts. I think the stark lines and lack of complication really appealed to me. Certainly when compared to the GW overkill that was all the rage at the time.

 

The paint scheme here was clearly modelled on the scheme on the front of the book (see picture at top of the post). They are almost finished. For some reason I didn't finish off their belt buckles, only doing one of the four.The transfers on the shields are also from the Void range, although one is missing the number on the bottom of the shield, so I'll go back and add that. Then go over the transfer with some kind of matte agent to dull down the shine. Compared to my other basing at the time, the bases on these is pretty done. There aren't even any holes in the slots that I didn't fill in (like on some of the marines below), so all I'll need to do there is give them a dusting with some snow powder. Maybe a little ink here and there and we're done. Only 14 years after I started them!

The second batch of minis I bought for Void were a box of normal marines. The initial Void 1.0 rules allowed for all four factions to have access to the same basic troops (marines and prisoner troops) with the addition of a few faction specific troops on top. Later, they released faction specific marines, and the prison troops became the sole domain of the Junkers.

Of course, there is no means of camouflaging these guys, I went with bright yellow (obviously inspired by my Escher). The only real touching up that needs done here is to a couple of the based where I didn't fill in the slot. That may mean they all have to be rebased though, as I chucked all my flock rather than bring it on the plane.

With these two units, I was well placed to move on to a Viridian army, however this was not to be, as the bulk of the troops that took my fancy were from the VASA faction. So that was the one I went on to collect. More of them in a future post (however, I never painted them up in any way, so there will be a lot less nice pictures there).

The last Viridian miniature I have from Void, and not any of the later games, is a limited release miniature, Lieutenant Night Shade. A quick search online came up trumps on her rules too (which I thought I had lost. She can be found here.

 

So, the question is, shall I paint her up to match the marines, like the Shock Marines, or like my other Viridians for Urban War? 

For those that are interested, the latest version of the Void ruleset (Void 1.1) can be downloaded from the Scotia Grendel website here, for the princely sum of $0. They also still sell all the minis that were released for Void. There is also all the other game supplements that were released in pdf form. Go check it out. I remember it being fun.