Heading underground again...

 o/

These are the coolest gaming pieces that I have never used.

After painting the last couple of cavern tiles that Nick printed for me, I thought I'd take the whole collection out of the box and see just how big of  a tunnel system I could create. As you can see it is fairly substantial. I forgot how much of a puzzle these are to assemble without leaving any gaping holes without a finished edge. 

Same as the above, just a different angle. 

I have 4 total entrances, and did my best to spread them out towards the four corners. 

All of the painted tiles by themselves. 

They never go together the same way twice, but as of today they cover somewhere between half to two thirds of my gaming table. I still have 25 or so pieces left to paint. However being a quick case of drybrushing followed by a few random tufts representing alien plants/molds/mosses  (presumably there are openings in the roof to let in sunlight pollen and seeds. 

My 20mm Starship Troopers patrolling the depths, in search of the little gribblies. 

Not that I have any little Gribblies. I suppose I need to get some Tyranid Rippers and put on individual 20mm bases. While a nuisance in 40k, they would be terrifying to some 20mm scaled infantry!

I still do not know what game system to use with these, but Nick said that they are nothing to print and was quite impressed with the above photos. So hopefully, one day I will be able to achieve my goal of having enough cave hexes to fill my entire table. 

Dual caverns, one painted & one not. 

20mm gaming and more cavern terrain

o/

They're a little bobbleheadish, but still pretty cool looking.

A few years back I looked into 15mm scale 40K due to the ever increasing costs of 40K minis and...I literally got laughed at. Skipping forward to the present and I have zero interest in playing anything GW as the costs of fielding something competitive are simply astronomical ($45 for a Lysander resculpt, seriously?). 

No packs, just their body armor. These are simple enough for generic sci-fi/near future troopers.

Anyways, I stumbled across some 20mm 3D printed Starship trooper minis, and ordered 30 for $33 including shipping & tax. The Etsy seller instead sent me 55! They all have rifles only, a variety of heavy weapons troopers are available and I may order some of those as well. 

Heading underground and looking for trouble. The guy with the striped base is the squad leader.

They also make a variety of 40K armies so the small scale and (gasp: affordable) 40K option is still there. We haven't settled on a system to use these with yet, but we are looking (possibly Down Range). As I received double what I was expecting, I gave half of the minis to my buddy Nick. 

Speaking of Nick...

He 3D printed up some more cavern tiles for me. 

Back when I first started buying my caves terrain, 3D printers were still a fairly new thing, and had not proliferated as they have by this point in time. As such, my originally purchased cavern tiles cost me a pretty penny. That said, they were still quite reasonable given the number I had purchased, and especially in comparison to say, any GW terrain. 

The nook is clear, move out.

The site I had previously gotten my cave tiles from went out of business at some point and no longer exists. However, I found the cave STLs on thingverse and bought them for a mere $20. I passed them on to Nick who has a few 3D printers. He printed up a small test batch (now painted) that you see above. I told him that I wanted to be able to fill my whole game table with these and he thought that was a cool idea saying (quote): 'I'll start cranking them out.' 

So look for more on the caverns front here in the future. 

*****

In regards to my last post and the stupid number of page hits: by the time that this post publishes, it will have crested 3,000 'views'. 

Thankfully September has come to an end...

 o/

Loren succumbs to the lure of Chaos...

Yeah, September wasn't a good month for me. It started out alright, however at about the week following my last post a coworker who thought he 'just had a cold' instead gave me covid. Which I in turn gave to my fiancé, who inadvertently gave it to her best (in the pic above), and its a 50/50 as to which of us then gave it to my stepson Frankie. 

We've all since recovered, but there was a lot of suck in those last two weeks (and that's just on the covid front, I'll spare you the rest). 

Doesn't even look like a repaint, just don't look at the other side of that gun shield!

The Drakes were strong with this one as it took multiple attempts (and decals) in order to get that icon to properly affix to his pauldron!

Another view from the business end. They're not in any of the pictures, but two more assault intercessors are also in-progress

Like my first time with the 'rona, once I started to feel better I started to paint minis during my enforced quarantine (unlike the last time, the quarantine wasn't 10 days, and I no longer live alone meaning I didn't paint 10+ minis this go round). 

First up I partially repainted the Firestrike Servo-Turret since the rest of my painted Silver Drakes have redeployed to the Connecticut subsector. The lack of availability in acquiring the needed metallic blue paint led to that army's demise. Given that the vast majority were unpainted, my Smurf army just got a BIG boost in numbers!

This is probably the equivalent of a Renault FT.

With the Quar equivalent of General Patton riding in the turret.

Space marine belt pouches for stowage.

The Servo turret added to the background for scale.

On a whim, I also painted up my 15mm Quar tank. I was so enamored with it that I then went on the zombiesmith website and ordered another one (different type) along with some other cool little vehicles. I'm thinking that I'll introduce Frankie to Bolt Action's rule set using the 15mm Quar in my caves terrain.  

Moving onto October...

...and it's DREADtober! My paltry entry into this year's event is my Day'lth Tau's Sub Commander Firestorm. Firestorm has thus far led my Tau infantry horde to a string of costly defeats. No doubt these were if fact diversionary assaults, drawing forces away from the actual invasions rendering said defeats into victories For the Greater Good! 

Coming to a close combat near you!

I've outfitted him/her with 3D printed, twin-airbursting fragmentation launchers (mortars) a shield generator and a prototype Thermoneutronic Projector. I thought the frag launchers looked cool and opted for them before I realized that mortars were the meta (ooh how I hate that term) weapon of choice. 

However, both pre- and post- mortar nerf, they've accomplished little. Most likely because this guy has a penchant for suicide charges into close combat where that projector is pretty much cheese on a stick! Suck it Farsight! 

No idea whose Rhino door it will be that Firestorm is striding over.

Whilst less than effective versus Neverness whose Termies all choose to hide behind the one guy with a storm shield when making armor saves, yet not when making their attacks (speaking of cheesy), Firestorm has sent a fair few of Rob's plague marines to their unexpected deaths! 

I doubt a proper paint job will improve his/her leadership capabilities, however it's high time this mini was painted since it leads and army that has 40-50ish painted models already, and is by far my most painted of armies. 

My various works in progress...

 

o/

I'm progressing on multiple fronts here of late, painting lots whilst finishing little...well, technically. First up are my caverns. Currently I've finished 50 (!?!) cavern hexes, yet I have many more to go. So yes, I am finishing individual pieces though the project as a whole isn't done (and I'll likely just buy MOAR when it is).

Soon these will be overrun with a horde of 15mm scaled Orks (which arrived in the mail the other day). 

I was thinking that I had about 60 or so cave hexes, but apparently I have more than that. I'll get an accurate count when I finish painting the lot as I've been keeping track of the number painted on a painting progress chart I have. I've dispensed with 'ard coating any more surfaces to make them look wet (as caverns so often are) because ultimately, it's barely noticeable and thus a waste of time. 

Differing somewhat from those tiles with the multicolored funguses, this tile apparently has a small opening to the surface in the roof above. Thus allowing for sunlight, rainwater and seeds/pollen to descend into the depths to sprout some limited green plant growth. 

Next up, I have my mediocre Team Yankee M577 from my prior post. I added two more plasticard bits to the front to cover up the still awful looking area where the tracks and front hull meet. Am thinking I'll get some cheesecloth to make some camo netting to hopefully cover up at least some of the multitude of still visible 3D printed flaws, maybe add a decal or...something.

Looks almost halfway decent...

Making progress on painting up my caverns.

 o/

One of these is not like the others...

Welp, this project is going faster than I expected. After trying one or two color combos I just opted to go super easy, with a simple dry brushed layer of Bleached Bone over Testors Light Earth flat spray paint. 

Amusingly, my generic base flocking works quite well in the caves.

Mad Cap Mushrooms?

To break up the monotony, I've added a few little tufts here and there in a variety of colors representing alien shrooms, fungi, or flowers that apparently don't need any light. Several columns and wall sides are also 'ard coated to look wet but that doesn't show up in these pics. 

I have 2 of each type of entrance. 

No cave trolls spotted...yet.

The two cave entrances that I have painted thus far are flocked mainly on the outside and around the arch undersides, representing the forest beyond. 

The simple dry brushing really ties it all together nicely.

Zone Mortalis in 15mm!!

These are fairly quick and easy to do, and am batch painting them at a rate of a half dozen at a time. Already about a third of the way done, I'm hoping I can push thru the rest before running out of steam, with my hobby butterfly wandering off to paint something else.