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Forgotten Forces Friday

It’s that day again, which quite frankly is a bugger because it means I am back to work on Monday….but to be honest I mustn’t grumble as at least I had time off over the holiday period and nothing happened when I was on call either…

Anyway today we travel to the hot dusty lands of Libya and members of the DAK…

These ancient chappies must be twenty years old at least. They were from my days of playing Rapid Fire and from what I remember there is a company strength’s worth in the box. As can be seen I never got round to finishing them off. The paint job is pretty naff too. Desert Yellow with a chestnut wash. Somewhere I have a 75mm infantry gun and 50mm AT gun too.

From what I remember these are Britannia miniatures purchased at the York Show in the Merchant Venturers guild. I also purchased an American Air-landing Brigade of two para and one glider force. These were sold to a mate up here, who has since moved away (I kind of reckon I left the DAK artillery in the box with them).

These are another of the ‘what the heck do I do with them’ boxes. No one up here does 20mm Desert action. Some do Bolt Action but in 28mm in the European theatre, others do the desert but in 15mm.

Part of me wants to strip them and paint them up again, but with the backlog of stuff to do and nothing to fight against, apart from the three LRDG chappies then it would mean extra expense to rekindle the campaign.

I wonder what next Friday will throw up….. so many boxes, so few Friday’s

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3D Printer Test 4

I had another mess around with the printer today. I decided to tighten the belt on the x axis. It has made a difference to the shape of the models.

The one on the left is more oval. I think that the one on the right is still out slightly but it has definitely caused a change.

I also tried increasing the temperature and got better results on the top layer of the sundials too.

This time the better one is on the right, still not perfect but better than before.

One in the graveyard would be a useful addition (well the gravediggers would need to know when to get the hole dug by).

They painted up ok ish … The build lines are really visible, but not from a distance.

I was going to make a start on my raised bit of the graveyard however it is cold and wet out there and I am wimping out going to the shed to get the necessary bits and pieces.

I had another try at printing the ladder. Successful prints: 1 and total failures: 6. Not sure what the cause is apart from the bed must have lost level as the filament was extruding ok but wasn’t adhering to the bed properly.

I really need a bed levelling print, but need to splice one on Cura to make it work. At least that way I can get it all tickety boo.

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3D Printing Painted

I decided that the cart would be a useful addition to my graveyard so I painted it up tonight along with the log pile… which isn’t much use for the graveyard unless I do a grave diggers hut!

There are still issues with the printing, but to be honest they really can’t be seen, well they can if you know where to look 😉.

As I said in an earlier post the laptop died so I can’t make any changes to the prints and can only print what I had in the card, which is very little to be honest. I could print wheels and the handles, but nothing else on the cart.

The other options to print are a short ladder, also useful for a graveyard, sundials, an altar and a water trough.

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Dauntless December Challenge 2018

Azazel’s December challenge was a pretty open one. One of the Options were Heroes. I had a bit of a mooch about and decided it was about time to get things painted that have sat there for too long. I really do like his challenges as they give me focus and to try out new things. As an example, In November I painted cars and motorbikes for the Mechanical challenge, something I wouldn’t have even considered doing. I am already planning January’s challenge.

This was my December haul of painted minis for the challenge. I decided to remove the ghoul officer as most of him was painted in November.

My first to be painted was a free miniature from Alternative armies, the ghost bride came in an order of 15mm bits and bobs to finish off my HOTT Conquistador army.

Here she is on her own…

https://bogenwaldblog.wordpress.com/2018/12/01/a-ghostly-bride/

Next up was Sir Willorcby a fine Orcish gentleman. He was another quick one to complete having very little in the way of tricky bits. To paint.

https://bogenwaldblog.wordpress.com/2018/12/03/sir-willorcby-all-finished/

Next up were the various rifleorcs, these had the base green already done, so I managed roughly one a night. These were replacements for my original set purchased when they first came out.

https://bogenwaldblog.wordpress.com/2018/12/11/captain-fredorcson/

Rogipoos trio came next, these are one of my favourite Flintloque sets. Jose and Nursey were done in a session and Rogipoos took a bit longer.

https://bogenwaldblog.wordpress.com/2018/12/17/nursey-ready-for-action/

Meriadoc Brandybuck was next… probably the faster mini I have ever painted. From bare metal to completed in just over the hour. The only mini not from Alternative Armies.

https://bogenwaldblog.wordpress.com/2018/12/18/meriadoc-brandybuck/

The next lot painted were my undead engineers, although not exactly heroic having no feelings to speak of I am going to count them as they will bravely dig ditches under the guns of the enemy….

https://bogenwaldblog.wordpress.com/2018/12/27/undead-engineers-all-done/

My Final figure was my Ostarian Hussar Officer. I did a very easy conversion in that I made a roundel out of Greenstuff on his Shako. This was to differentiate him from the rank and file (which is what he is really).

I managed to squeeze him into the final day of December. Out of all of them I think he is the one I am happiest with. I really tried some blending on the colours and I feel I achieved the look I was after on the saddle blanket at the very least.

https://bogenwaldblog.wordpress.com/2018/12/31/phew-i-made-it/

I am going to go for some terrain for January’s challenge. I have forty gravestones to do something with. My intention is to do a small hill covered in graves as well as various bits of scatter terrain. When I get the 3D printer sorted I want to do a wall and iron fence around a smaller private cemetery.

I will see what else I can come up with too. I need to do terrain for my 6mm road wars as well as my 15mm French and Indian wars.

We shall see how far I get…. I am now off to paint a 3D printed cart.

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Whatever happened to ‘Forgotten Forces Friday’ Wednesday

Yeah, with being off work and then with the run up to New Year I forgo all about FFF.

So to make amends and to allow me to return these to their box in the shed I give you Sci Fi Zombies.

These fine chaps were part of a role play game for Necropolis. They were a mix of GW plastic zombies and catachan jungle fighters.

A great setting by my mate Wiggy. It is a military Sci Fi system set on the Planet Salus and is the final place where mankind has a hold. The Rephaim ( the dead ones) are an alien race of undead beings whose sole aim is to exterminate all life on Salus.

The players take on the role of a soldier of the Sacri Ordines of the third Reformation Church and are instrumental in the crusade to hold back the undead.

I really enjoyed playing this, it isn’t, however, a game where you should get too attached to your character. What with the undead and the corporations trying to undermine the church and each other, then it is a pretty deadly campaign setting.

My character was a knight Scout of the Ordo Templi Novi (Templars). Somehow I survived even though I had taken the sacred vow ‘Non Receptus, Non Concedere’ no retreat, no surrender.

A good write up of the setting can be found here.

http://roleplayerschronicle.com/?p=27787

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A Year’s Worth of Painting Stuff.

A fair few people have been sharing what they did over the past year so I thought I would have a look back through my blog posts to see what I had been up to.

The ran into three broad categories… 28mm Flintloque being the most numerous with well into the 120’s miniatures

Next were the 15mm French and Indian Wars and my HOTT army.

Bringing up the rear in scale were my 10mm Mongols and Amazons. I probably painted more of these figure wise than the other two.

I also painted up my 20mm Dark Future vehicles for Azazel’s Mechanical November Challenge. 28mm WW2 tanks and heavy weapons for a friend and bringing up the rear a Frostgrave Warband.

I knew I had painted a fair bit this year, but only when I went through the blog posts and media I actually realised how much I had done.

Now looking at my posts, I have been pretty well behaved figure purchase wise. I can’t remember when during the year I decided to try and paint what I already had, to be fair it was part way through and definitely not a New Year resolution.

So here is my purchase list…

November

Some 20mm operatives and drivers for my Dark Future Vehicles

October

bits and bobs to finish off my HOTT army and unfortunately a DBA Aztec army (I was overcome by a fit of Nostalgia!)

July

Some Ostarian cavalry for Flintloque from EBay. These worked out at around a pound per mounted figure instead of four so it was too good a chance to miss. One of them was the final figure painted in 2018. I still have six to paint.

April

Grapeshotte Schilling pack, this included 2 Artillery pieces with dog crew for Flintloque. As I already had some artillery I decided some rules would be useful (there are lots of other rules in their too) The Schilling pack was a good bargain. There was Free postage too!

March

Bier and Bones Schilling pack … I wanted rules and race states for dwarves, dogs, ogres etc. The Schilling packs are really good value. It did mean I ended up with dwarves and ogres to paint but hey! I also added in a squad of Savant zombies and four more ogres and a new resin ogre Officer. A pile of various civilians also went into the order (again there was free postage).

That is pretty much the purchases this year – well at least the ones I can remember. I am not counting the GW magazine figures as I bought them for the paint! The kids got the minis to paint (except they didn’t) I got three of the first one. Three of the second (I got one for me and grabbed the other two for friends, who it turned out had already managed to get one) and then one of the third.

I am going to try and follow the same mantra this year as I have enough Forgotten Forces Friday to last at least 6 months. There is however a clause to this. There is one miniature in the Flintloque range that I intend to buy should I get the chance. Lady Anna, an Orc lady is no longer available. I managed to get Lord Orcingham in a pile of other miniatures a year ago, but so far Lady Anna has evaded me… oh yeah, while I remember when the Perry’s bring out their plastic Agincourt mounted knights at least two boxes of them!

Where to this year?

I intend to keep on painting as often as I can. I try to paint something every night, not to the finished stage, but to simply get some paint onto something. Azazel’s painting challenge has definitely helped me get stuff done.

Things to paint this year are>

28mm: Flintloque …. (shit loads), Agincourt plastics

15mm: Aztecs and my prize from the HOTT competition- 15mm Lizardmen

10mm: Elves, Mongols, Sudan War, Dinosaurs, various other bits and bobs

6mm: Road wars

Not to mention various things in various scales that I find in the various boxes.

The 3D printer will no doubt become a bit more of a thing, once I get the hang of it properly. The laptop containing the splicing software breaking hasn’t helped me get on much further.

More terrain will be made. I need stuff for 6mm, 10mm, 15mm and 28mm, so plenty of choice there!

We are going to get role playing again this month with more Shenanigans in Middle Earth to begin with and I hope to get back to the club more this year.

So not exactly a resolution, but something to aim for 😉

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Phew…I Made It!

Well that’s my December miniature marathon finished.

I managed to finish my Hussar Officer, well when I say finished….

The kids were great this afternoon, which meant I could work on him and get him done. I have visitors arriving in half an hour so I suppose I had better get sorted 😱.

So here he is in all of his glory

And from the other side…

Just don’t ask me what unit he is from… I picked colours I liked 😉.

Anyway that is me finished painting for another year.

I just want to wish anyone reading this:

health, wealth and happiness for the coming year.

See you all in 2019.

May your brush points stay pointy and your paint keep flowing!

All the very best.

Cheers

Steve.

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Aaaarggghhh….One Day Left

I was hoping to get him finished before the end of the month.

I did push on a bit and get the horse finished though…

I still managed to do twenty miniatures in the month (I am counting the horse as a miniature 😁👍😁) which isn’t too shabby. I might get some time tomorrow afternoon, but not enough, I would imagine, to get the rider finished.

As I am bereft of the software to slice the 3D prints then I will just have to get back to painting things again 😉.

I did manage to successfully print a ladder today! Probably took five attempts but getting there.

There are still some issues with the extrusion for the top layer though. I test ran another couple of sundials, but got exactly the same issues of weird printing on the top layer. To be fair though, this is day four of my 3D printer career.

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3D Printer… Test 3

Yesterday was four hours of frustration. Printer got half way through a sundial and then stopped printing. Dismantled the nozzle (twice) changed the nozzle (twice) still nothing, filament was dribbling through so it was heating up ok. Burnt fingers would agree, nozzle temperature was sitting at 200 degrees! Pulled the filament out too (guess how many times!)

Eventually as I was feeding it back in I noticed that the flow from the nozzle increased. So a bit more investigation occurred. I very quickly noticed that the filament wasn’t moving even though the filament pusher thingy (not the correct technological term) was turning.

It turned out that it had moved it’s way upwards on it’s spindle and was sitting above the filament.

The thingy is arrowed above. This is in the correct place for it, when I found it, it was sitting right at the top of the spindle shown.

Eventually I managed to get it going again…

Bits and bobs printed

I am still struggling with under extrusion you can see it on the picture below, the top should be smooth.

I was going to mess around with the splicing software today but unfortunately the laptop died! I can have a mess around on the printer settings as I go to print, but the software is the easiest method. By all accounts I need to drop the speed to about 95% and possibly the temperature of the nozzle, by 5 degrees or so.

I will print the sundial out again and compare the two.

Finally I found these on Thingiverse and just had to have them. First attempts were pretty unsuccessful. They got half way through and then moved on the plate. I overcame it by building a raft to begin with and voila… safely printed. Still problems with under extrusion (I think – still new to this)

I will get them painted up and photograph them again.

The biggest buggeration I have is that I need a computer to run the slicing program, so all I can print is what is already on the memory card.

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3D printer test 2

I had another bash with my printer today and made my filament guides. I then chose an item to print. I decided on the free altar from Fat Dragon.

The one on the left was due to a PLA malfunction (aka my lower filament guide failed and jammed the filament.

Second one came out ok… I reckon I might be able to make it smoother, but something to check out.

It paints up okay, I think

I also made a start on my Ostarian Cavalry dog.