Ten years after

Back in 2003 or 2004 I made the short trip from where I was working at the time to Britannia Miniatures in Runcorn having spotted their advert in Wargames Illustrated. I can't recall what I was after - I think it was driven more by curiosity than anything else.

Whilst I was there I spotted that they sold 4 packs of miniatures in their S.W.A.T. range - 2 each for the SWAT guys and the criminals. Whilst not being the best sculpts ever they were cheap (about £1 a miniature IIRC) and they were a complete change from my usual gaming habits of Fantasy and Sci-Fi. I think I bought the packs they had in and returned a week or two later to buy some more.

Having bought into this new genre I had to decide what to do with them. For whatever reason I decided to create my own rules set (Officer Down) and set about painting them up.The big issue however was scenery - none of my existing scenery was really any use and I lacked the talent to scratch build decent scenery myself. After a few (quite fun) games I ended up putting everything in a box and letting it gather dust for years.

Here's a photo from 2004 showing the state of things - I had base coated (but not highlighted or shaded) the miniatures but that was about it. That's a paper stand-up building by the way - IIRC it fell apart not long afterwards.



And now in 2014 I've dug them out again and given them a bit of TLC. I've re-based them, touched up chipped paintwork, shaded and highlighted them and finally given them a spot of satin varnish. As a result they look much better.



These are still not quite finished though. I anticipate adding some road markings to the bases but I am holding off until I have decided whether miniature facing will be important in the new version of the rules.

Carnage City Rocks

Carnegie City (or Carnage City to those who live there) is the setting for my Officer Down rules which will pit criminal gangs against each other and against law enforcement for control of the streets of Carnage.

I first started this project over 10 years ago and it has featured every year in my "Scale of the problem" posts as "SWAT teams and Criminals". The miniatures themselves are mostly base coated but the project itself has foundered mainly due to a lack of suitable scenery in my collection. I have started addressing the scenery side of things and here is my first completed batch. These are some lovely resin pieces by Ainsty - I think I might end up buying some more items from them soon.







And this little song keeps running round my head.

Lots and lots for us to see, lots and lots for us to do

I've had somewhat of a productive weekend and I've cleared a lot of stuff off my workbench that I've been chipping away at from some time.

First up is a reaper bones mini which will be used for Raistlin in our Dragonlance campaign.



Next up a mimic and a treasure chest (bones again) which means I have finished all the bones set dressing items as requested by Daniel.



Moving swiftly along we have 10 Mantic Revenants. I don't intend to use these in my KoW army, I originally bought these to make a SoBaH warband with but now they will probably get used more for D&D.



And the we get on to the things that will be part or my KoW undead army - Firstly a Vampire and a Revenant King. These are both easy conversions combining Mantic parts with GW LOTR Morgul Knights.



I've also painted up Mhorgoth the faceless to act as another Necromancer in my army - I doubt I will use him much as a living legend.



And lastly I have s sneak peek of some scenery I built this weekend for my Officer Down game.



These are superb kits from Sarissa Precision. They were fantastically easy to assemble and they look great - now I just need to work out how to paint them.

Bony bones

Yet more reaper bones of the bony variety. These leapfrogged a few other items in the painting queue as they were so easy to do. I have started basing some of my bones miniatures on Renedra round bases for a little extra stability.



And next up we have some additions to the Dragonlance party for Thursday nights. From left to right we have Goldmoon, Fizban and Theros Ironfield (from Dark Sword, Reaper Bones and Reaper Bones). Not official Dragonlance miniatures of course but they fit the part well enough.



Still on the workbench are a load more undead which are nearing completion.

Hey, hey, hey. What's in your head

Braiiiins!



Five bones zombies from the Bones Kickstarter campaign. A quick and easy paint job and now they're done.

Dressing up

A while back I asked Dan which bones minis I should paint next and was surprised when he chose the dungeon set dressing.



This is the first batch - an altar, sarcophagus, a well and a couple of candelabras. I have a couple of others coming along too as well as a heap of other things on my workbench nearing completion.