Bison's Tales of Hobby Crafting

[Doctor Quest]

My wife is an early childhood education consultant. She found this post and I thought it was appropriate for the thread. It is the process and the relationships that are important, not the end result. Let your kids have FUN for God's sake.

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

And if Dwayne ends up sitting in a mud puddle with gum in his hair and eating a jar of paste....well that's a memory that'll last forever. 

[thecommandtent]

Are you using home rules for the figs or just painting and collecting

Fistful of Lead. It’s a quick, rules light skirmish game with 5-8 figures a side. The base game plays generically across multiple historic eras but has expansions and rule sets for nearly any setting. The core rules are mostly the same across genres and the traits and the like can be mixed between rulebooks as desired.

It’s worth a look especially if you have an eclectic collection or do not want to build and paint huge armies. I have played my medieval figs as I build out my Lions Rampant armies. So it’s a nice way to play as you build. It does have rules for larger unit battles called Big Battles. It’s a lot of fun. It’s available on wargame vault or print. I have a number of rules in pdf but it drives me crazy. So we play the base, fantasy, and wasteland warriors rules now. I plan on getting the sci-fi and horse and musket rules eventually.

https://wiley-games.myshopify.com/

Paper rules available in the UK here: https://oshiromodels.wixsite.com/oshiromodelswebshop/rules

Thanks to you got the PDF core rules and the boy and I are figuring out warbands from the few miniatures I have. Now we are trying to figure out a good way to generate a random scenario to test the rules and our warbands out. 

[Undercovergeek]

Are you using home rules for the figs or just painting and collecting

Fistful of Lead. It’s a quick, rules light skirmish game with 5-8 figures a side. The base game plays generically across multiple historic eras but has expansions and rule sets for nearly any setting. The core rules are mostly the same across genres and the traits and the like can be mixed between rulebooks as desired.

It’s worth a look especially if you have an eclectic collection or do not want to build and paint huge armies. I have played my medieval figs as I build out my Lions Rampant armies. So it’s a nice way to play as you build. It does have rules for larger unit battles called Big Battles. It’s a lot of fun. It’s available on wargame vault or print. I have a number of rules in pdf but it drives me crazy. So we play the base, fantasy, and wasteland warriors rules now. I plan on getting the sci-fi and horse and musket rules eventually.

https://wiley-games.myshopify.com/

Paper rules available in the UK here: https://oshiromodels.wixsite.com/oshiromodelswebshop/rules

Thanks to you got the PDF core rules and the boy and I are figuring out warbands from the few miniatures I have. Now we are trying to figure out a good way to generate a random scenario to test the rules and our warbands out. 

this is brilliant - post the aar soon!!

[Bison]

Thanks to you got the PDF core rules and the boy and I are figuring out warbands from the few miniatures I have. Now we are trying to figure out a good way to generate a random scenario to test the rules and our warbands out. 

That’s awesome. A couple of pieces of advice:
1. It’ll turn into some sort of Calvin Ball the first many times you play. It’s ok. Just roll with it. Try to keep the basic structure in place. Use cards to do turns and dice rolls to hit, armor, and wound.

2. Do not get fixed on a scenario at first. Meet in the middle and duke it out. Add a piece or two of terrain slowly to make sure he understands it’s rules.

3. Sometimes he needs to win but not always. Losing is the hardest thing for some kids to come to terms with but over time it works itself out.

4. Have fun and enjoy the process. He will learn the rules and start to correct your errors soon enough.

[thecommandtent]

Thanks to you got the PDF core rules and the boy and I are figuring out warbands from the few miniatures I have. Now we are trying to figure out a good way to generate a random scenario to test the rules and our warbands out. 

That’s awesome. A couple of pieces of advice:
1. It’ll turn into some sort of Calvin Ball the first many times you play. It’s ok. Just roll with it. Try to keep the basic structure in place. Use cards to do turns and dice rolls to hit, armor, and wound.

2. Do not get fixed on a scenario at first. Meet in the middle and duke it out. Add a piece or two of terrain slowly to make sure he understands it’s rules.

3. Sometimes he needs to win but not always. Losing is the hardest thing for some kids to come to terms with but over time it works itself out.

4. Have fun and enjoy the process. He will learn the rules and start to correct your errors soon enough.

Good stuff. Calvin Ball such a good analogy for trying to do stuff with kids 

Are you using home rules for the figs or just painting and collecting

Fistful of Lead. It’s a quick, rules light skirmish game with 5-8 figures a side. The base game plays generically across multiple historic eras but has expansions and rule sets for nearly any setting. The core rules are mostly the same across genres and the traits and the like can be mixed between rulebooks as desired.

It’s worth a look especially if you have an eclectic collection or do not want to build and paint huge armies. I have played my medieval figs as I build out my Lions Rampant armies. So it’s a nice way to play as you build. It does have rules for larger unit battles called Big Battles. It’s a lot of fun. It’s available on wargame vault or print. I have a number of rules in pdf but it drives me crazy. So we play the base, fantasy, and wasteland warriors rules now. I plan on getting the sci-fi and horse and musket rules eventually.

https://wiley-games.myshopify.com/

Paper rules available in the UK here: https://oshiromodels.wixsite.com/oshiromodelswebshop/rules

Thanks to you got the PDF core rules and the boy and I are figuring out warbands from the few miniatures I have. Now we are trying to figure out a good way to generate a random scenario to test the rules and our warbands out. 

this is brilliant - post the aar soon!!

Started a new thread in the AAR section!

[Bison]

Pulling some more plastic out of the to-do box in the garage, I selected a couple of iconic planes AD&D monsters. They will serve dual duty as monsters in a future RPG session and as some sort of mutant in FoL games.

The Displacer Beast is one of my all-time favorite monsters. Its basing is not yet complete a couple of little rocks and some grass just to break up the expanse of dirt a little bit is in order.



The Xorn. Seriously, one of the craziest monsters in the game. They come from the earth plane and eat through rock to find minerals to sustain themselves. And like the Displacer Beast, they basely phase in and out of the material plane. Terrifying. A little glossy varnish needs to be applied to their eyes and gaping mouths for a little added effect.

[Bison]

Got on a bit of a night owl roll last night and worked a couple of more monster minis.

The Troll is the typical iconic AD&D variant. I honestly prefer the D&D take on the troll to the larger more giant-like trolls seen in the Tolkien movies. I think if I decide to paint another one I will look at some color changes. Black hair and a lighter green-grey or brown-green something or other. I should try and make its teeth more rotten and diseased looking. Perhaps trolls have good dental hygyene? Anyway, the sculpt is pretty good sized as you can see in the comparison with a normal-sized human fighter. Truly a terrifying monster. I do find it funny the troll took the time to find some leather and rope to so politely cover up his troll bits.

[Bison]

A couple of bugbears for good measure. The wizard or shaman lady was my technique project. No shades were used on her clothing. Strictly used glazes to try and create less stark shadowing on the colors and create a more subtle dark to highlight. I think I could have gone a tone lighter for the highlighting but my orange paint colors available are pretty limited. The fighter is painted in my typical tabletop standards. I have really been working to increase my color selections. I was really using a lot of brown and green color templates for my fantasy figures. So used the art photo on the package for the mage to go bold with orange and red. The warrior was jazzed with some gold, grey, and blues still muted colors on him but more contrasting than some of my other bugbears. And I am not sure if its very noticeable but I also painted his eyes.

[thecommandtent]

Those two really came out good. Love the color in them.

[Bison]

I like the way the cloth colors turned out. It reminded me how much more effective glazing is for creating subtle and more natural transitions.

Now this abomination on the other hand...oy... needs some fixing up. I think just changing the color of the pants to a lighter and more neutral color will work to make him slightly less garish. I had "help" picking out the colors. Somedays, some models are just a challenge and I should have stopped while I was ahead. I planned to after finishing the wings and head but did not so live and learn.

He is a space pterodactyl. I'll readdress him tomorrow. Although, I suspect the kids will like his bright colors. The image is not the best but the armor is a rose-color light gold which actually looks decent in person. It's the pants. Hell, I do not even know if he is wearing pants. The model is a Reaper Bones Black. Reaper is good for the budget and experimenting but its details are not always very clear. In this case, it's a space dinosaur with lots of gear and natural body parts that the mold lines just blend together. Whether I deal anymore with him or not, it does not really matter. He will still get played during our tabletop battles. We need more weird mutant, alien creatures to diversify our warbands.

[Bison]

...It has been significantly longer than I expected since I last archived a hobby update. Needless to say, the hobby productivity has been a bit slow.

I have managed to paint up a few random figures to use in a game of something or other at some point.

A Reaper Black edition figure. Pain. In. The. Ass. First of all when Reaper says a miniature is ready to paint, i.e. primed and ready to be painted, they lie. This alien guy was in no way primed. But because I like to experiment, I painted him...er...it...anyway without priming which without question was a mistake. Read this proclamation: Rule 345za2 - A primed figure always allows paints to be applied easier. Prime your figures. Anyhow, after much swearing and bouts of temporary insanity. I got the paint to stick. On a worthwhile note, I love Vallejo's metallic medium. It can create some great effects without having to invest in a lot of metallic paint colors. It does not show through very well in this image but in person, the alien has a shimmering robe.

[Bison]

A couple of creatures I painted mostly to use in Fistfuls of Lead but will probably come in handy for some RPG session at some point.

Sabertooth Tiger. I hate painting fur. It is a hassle. I mean look at some photos of real animals. Ok. Not a sabertooth. They are extinct and no photos exist. CGI and artist renditions aside. But look at some living animals or if you have an animal phobia...a photo will suffice. It's best if you happen to be the servant to a cat lord...ask your Lord or Lordette's permission of course...but examine the fur colors. Fur hairs are not homogeneous in color. Anyway. I think this feline turned out decent.


One of the greatest movies of my childhood is Clash of the Titans. I have a soft spot in my heart for old pulp cinema and love claymation. So when I saw this gent just hanging on the rack at the shop, I knew immediately I was going to adopt him. Scorpions make horrible pets. Seriously. Do not buy a scorpion as a pet. However, as a terror on the battlefield, they are great. I need to find another one or two. Scorpions need a social group of like-minded fellows to properly terrorize would-be adventures. I was going to go with an iconic black scorpion but it looked boring. So I spruced him up with some reds and browns. I love him.

[thecommandtent]

He's back! 

Good stuff as usual.

[Bison]

Now for a moment of fatherly pride. As you will recall, my boys won some plastic kits at a convention a few months back. We took to building some of the kits and then we painted them.

A German Tiger painted more or less in a late-war camo color scheme.  Firstly, I airbrushed the base color. The boy helped to airbrush the stripes and handpainted painted the tracks. I think we did pretty good for a father-and-son joint effort. We still need to address some of the details but not too shabby for our first tank.



I primed the other son's US infantry but he did all of the painting himself. Historically accurate? I have no idea. I do not care. He does not care. The look of pride on his face was awesome and he immediately showed them off to mom, sisters, me, mom, his brother, me, mom, his sisters, the dog, one of the cats, me, his mom...





He wants to build and paint a few more to use as his gang in Fistful of Lead. I stand by my belief. Kids can do some amazing things if given the chance and guidance.