Warhammer Wednesday - Lord of The Rings

Well it just so happens that I have found my Lord of The Rings (LoTR) "Mines of Moria Strategy Battle game play set. This set I bought a while back and even though I assembled all the pieces and had painted most if not all of them, I was surprised that they were still in relatively good condition, given the fact that the box it came in is completely busted and ragged.

So I decided to pull it all out of the box and started to paint the bits of the models that I hadn't gotten round to painting. Sadly my Games Workshop (GW) paints have gone missing and I had a good £100 worth of paints that were in great condition, but ever since my husband's father and his fiance decided to clear up the back room (where the paints were) I have never seen head or tail of them since. My guess is that they must've thrown it out along with all the other junk. So that was a good lot of paints GONE !! So recently last week I proceeeded to buy some acrylic paints at our local Wilkinson shop in town. The paint set only cost £2.29 and you got a good set of 12 paints in metal tubes, I could've gone for the plastic tubes which had more paint in them, but they were 95p each so it would've cost me double the price!

I have always wanted to find a cheaper way of painting warhammer models and to be honest acrylics would be the next best thing as they stick to anything from paper, wood, plastic and even metal. Now don't get me wrong GW paints are great as well, but they cost about £2.20 approx a pot and that's very expensive for a 12ml pot of paint. There is another Spanish brand by the name of "Vallejo Model Color" and they are not as expensive as the GW paints, yet there is no shop in my nearest town that sells them except Glasgow which is much further away!



The Mines of Moria Game

Now being only a painter or "hobbiest"  I have never even played the game or even tried to as i always thought that the rules were too complicated to follow. Yet having read the Pocket rule book and also having read through a few of the scenarios in the other scenario book, the game play doesn't seem to be too difficult, although I think that by having another person to play with and go through the game play will more than likely make things easier as I am more of  a DIY person when it comes to instructions rather than actually reading instructions. So when it comes to it I can hopefully get the hang of it all and how to play and maybe it will get me more interested in playing the Game rather than just painting models and never being able to Play the game itself and who knows maybe I can get my other half interested in it too rather than the PS3 getting used. I have always been in favour of boardgames, card games etc rather than console games.


May the Gods bless you and Keep on Fighting

Commisioning Ironman Suits

Well its been a while since I posted on this blog, as I am mainly commandeering my other blog "Life of a Hellenic Pagan blogspot", which is mainly aimed at my Hellenic Pagan religious practices. But this blog is mainly where all my non- religious stuff goes, (mainly warhammer stuff , but other "stuff" too) . So last year i did some commission work for a friend of mine who wanted to have an Iron man Suit repainted in a darkpurple almost balck colour. So of course i immediately jumped at the chance as I loved painting and what better model to do it on than an Ironman suit because it's so versatile and the themes and colours are so vast it just well..awesome , So here is the Purple black Ironman suit Before, Primed and After shots:

Ironman Stealth Suit 

This is the model in his original "Stealth suit" , as you can see the colouring isn't al that great to begin with. I had to attach teh model to a paint pot with blue tac so that it would be held steady when it came to priming him with my Gamesworkdshop Citadel Black primer paint. What i really loved about this model is the amount of detail and the ridges too which made it look quite Tron like.

"Primed" ironman suit

 On the right here is the same model but with the black Citadel  "Black Chaos" primer spray paint. I had to prime it twice to get a smooth matt finish and to speed up the drying process I used a hairdryer on a cool setting so it didn't melt the model.  I tried to make the coats of primer as thin as possible to avoid "pooling" in the indentations of the armour. i think it looked pretty badass if I do say so myself. I could've left it black , but what the customer wants, the customer gets right?!!










and below  is the final Product. Not too bad if i do say so myself, although to really appreciate the colour purple you have to hold it up to the light as in shadow it just looks completely black. but can you see what i did to the ridges to give it that Tron likesque to the model? yeah I painted the inside ridges in purple and painted his hand arc reactors and chest piece white with a slight border of bright yellow to give it that glowy effect! It looks totally awesome right ?

Finished Product

So I hoped you enjoyed this Ironmanpost, coz next time you may be surprised at the next ironman post so tune in next time. Till then amigos and May the Gods bless you

Super Hero Squad collection

So I have made the decision to start collecting the miniature Marvel figures "Superhero Squad". Now I don't usually collect these sorts of figurine but as my fiance (PsychoboyUK Prime of a Lifetime) and my close friend (Not Quite Prime) seem to be having some sort of "transformers Collectors war" going on between them, I thought it was time for me to start making a collection of something. I love superheroes and as much as I would love to adorn my pad with 8" models, its not something that is always feesable when you lack space to put it all! Already my fiance has taken up an entire bookshelf and some TV stand space with his transformers figurines, that unless we get a our back bedroom re-decked, I fear that our living room will be over run with Decepticons and Autobots lol!! OMG I'll end up becoming like Penny from the Big Bang Theory TV series!, not that I already have two guys in my life that are taking those personas minus the physicists part of it lol. Already both my fiance and my friend test me every now and again on which superhero or villan belongs to the Marvel Universe or DC Universe. Yeah believe me it is hard.

So here we have Captain America with his shield  and Red Skull what seems to be holding the tessaract. I intend on collecting more as my fiance works at an awesome retail shop called B&M, where they sell these little guys quite cheaply. Unfotunatley Captain America's shield is not very secure so I had to stick a tiny bit of blue tack so that it would stay in place in his hand. So here they are Captain America with his old nemesis Red Skull battleing it out . I apologise for the bad quality pictures , I did this on my webcam

Each of the figurines are about 2 1/2 - 3 inches in height so they are quite small in size,small and mighty that is. There is even a cartoon called "Super Heroes Squad", and I have watched a few episodes on Youtube and its really fun. You may have seen similar figures to these which are in my friends post "Not quite Prime" Blogspot, but I think they are of a different brand and he has two Batman figures and an Aquaman figure which he has featured in his blog post "Hall of Armors" too so check out his blog on the following link : http://notquiteaprime.blogspot.co.uk . and my fiances blog http://pbukprimeofalifetime.blogspot.co.uk/ for all things, Marvel, DC and above all Transformers!

captain America 

Red Skull

So until then May the Gods bless you and keep fighting the good fight, coz you will never know when you need to "Suit Up"!! enjoy the wee movie too :) 

Cheaper ways of painting your army

I have always had the need to find a cheaper and more affordable way of painting my miniatures. I have found that Games Workshop paints "Citadel" have gotten even more expensive than they were about a year ago, this is probably due to their new colour scheme and also new paints range along with new paint names ( I liked the old paint names) which are quite frankly unecessary in my opinion. for a 12oz pot of paint paying £2.30 is a bit steep considering its only a very small amount in the pot and once you have run out you have to go out and buy more.

Of course there are more chaeper but good  quality alternatives,such as vallejo Model Color (spanish), Reaper paints

So instead of having to pay so much for paint, I had decided on buying a set of acrylic paints which I found in my local store in town. to be honest for aset of 12 paints for £2.29 i was quite impressed as not only am i paying for 12 paints for teh price of one pot of GW paint, I'm saving that much more! If i was to buy a set of GW base paints box ( 9 paints plus a few tools plus gstatic grass and sand) in teh set i woudl have to pay almost thre timws as much £35!

Citadel hobby set

this is what comes in a Citadel Hobby starter set for £35:

1 pot of Leadbelcher (12ml)
1 pot of Macragge Blue (12ml)
1 pot of Waaagh! Flesh (12ml)
1 pot of Averland Sunset (12ml)
1 pot of Bugman's Glow (12ml)
1 pot of Mephiston Red (12ml)
1 pot of Mournfang Brown (12ml)
1 pot of Imperial Primer (12ml)
1 pot of White Scar (12ml)
1 Starter Brush
1 pair of Plastic Cutters
1 bottle of PVA Glue (20ml)
1 bottle of Plastic Glue (20ml)
1 Tub of Static Grass (10 grams)
1 Tub of Sand (45 grams)

So with the extra bits aside , for 9 pots of paint (£2.30 each) I would be paying £20.70 where as for my acrylic set I'm getting 12 paints for only £2.29 so a big saving of £18.41 !

Pros and Con's of Acrylic Paint

One thing you have to remember about acrylic paints is that they dry FAST and if you do not use the paint that is on your palette in about 2 or 3 hours, you can bet that it will solidify and then you would have wasted paint, so the best thing to do is to either add a small dab of water onto the acrylic blob or just use it up really fast. Another thing is that they are very thick paints and so you do need to thin them down slightly with water, but thin them down too much and you end up with a watercolour consistancy and that will not make the paint "stick" to the model, as it will just slide right off . The best thing when using acrylics is to apply in thin even layers and often to get the opaqueness of them. Of course you could slather it on like butter, but that is a technique for canvases. If the paint is applied to the model too thickly it won't dry quickly and so you will have to wait a good 2-3 hours for it to dry out. So if you are one of those very speedy painters that like to slp on a bit of colour just to add variety to your models then maybe acrylics would not be your choice, so its probably better to stick to GW paints or Vallejo Model colour paints. Yet if using acrylic paints then it best to apply thin coats on the said model thereby building the colour up.

Hoped this blog has helped you somewhat in determining whether to buy more expensive paints, thereby draining your wallet, or cheaper alternative paints thereby easing your wallet. Just bear in mind that "most expensive" doesn't always mean "best quality or endurability".

Happy Painting !

Free paper scenery to download

I know a lot of people prefer to get the Hard Resin plastic scenery, but it can be fairly expensive to buy a plastic scenery kit. So what do you do when you are strapped for cash? FREE Downloadable paper scenery of course !! Now you may think  "aww but its too flimsy..etc". So what you can do is stick the paper scenery to ordinary cereal box card and then cut them out, this will make it sturdier, but less flexible to fold the tabs in which case you will need to lightly score down the dotted lines, so that they can bend into position.

So all you would need is:

• A good quality colour printer
• PVA Glue
• Scissors or craft knife 

the following webpage has a got a few good paper cut scenery models, so whatever tickles your fancy , go and have fun downloading and creating your fantasy world of adventure! 

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd%2Ffpm%2Farchive

http://www.davesgames.net/

Happy Wargamming

Warhammer Wednesday - Wargamming Terrain

Its been a long time waiting, but its finally Wednesday and I'm excited coz i wanted to share with you my crafty side of my Warhammer Fantasy Hobby. So what is Warhammer you may think? Warhammer Gaming is the ever growing popular Miniwarmgaming game ever and dare i say it is a very expensive hobby to keep up. This game is where you can collect a miniature plastic resin army of models , paint them up and customise them either by paint, convert or even by magnetising parts of your chosen model or army. There are two main groups of warhammer these being Warhammer 40k , which are the sci-fi models such as Tyranids, Spacemarines, Tau, Necrons etc and the Second is Warhammer Fantasy which is the most mythical and fantasy side , such as High elves, wood elves, Bretonians, Tomb Kings (Egyptians skeletons), Dwarves and Lord of the Rings models (LOTR) .

I would consider myself very nimbled fingered when it comes to arty farty projects and this hobby is no exception. I simply love what you can do with the models in terms of painting them up in different colours, Making terrain such as trees, hills etc and you can even magnetise parts of the model itself, which  involves drilling the miniature, and sticking magnets etc, very fussy stuff, but useful none the less for those of us gamers who like the option of different weapons etc, I personally do not do it as it seems too complicated for me. So i just stick to stuff like painting up and making terrain. So i thought i would share with you some Warhammer  terrain projects that i recently constructed out of corrugated cardboard. Now i know that there are proper plastic terrain pieces which are absolutely marvellous, but if like me you are strapped for cash, making your own is just as rewarding if not more so since its you that had the hands on approach to it. Much of the materials that i used are as follows :

• corrugated box cardboard
• Stanly or craft knife
• PVA glue /(Elmer's glue if in the USA) and "Hard as Nails" which is a tackier glue which i also useful as filler to fill in gaps etc.
• Pencil
• Paints
• Spray primer black and white
• rocks /gravel/sand  (to add some sort of texture to your terrain), bits and bobs ie toothpicks, cotton reel, old necklace chain etc 

A Greek ruined pillar with some Lizard bits and bobs

So here are some example of the terrain that I have been constructing out of cardboard. Some of the terrain pieces are missing Green flocking , but that is only because i didn't have any to hand, but i still think they make a pretty good impact anyway. Another thing about making terrain is the fact that you have to make them in balance with the models. here the miniatures are from a company called Games Workshop, who are the main manufacture of these specific models. 

Elven Weystone

The army that i am collecting now are mainly Lizardmen and LOTR army, which both come form the Warhammer Fantasy Group. So Do you need experience to do these things? in a word NO you don't. As long as you have a good imagination and are creative, you can do whatever you choose to do, the sky is the limit. If you are having some difficulties in coming up with ideas then i would highly recommend the Game workshop book "How to Make Wargaming Terrain", for some very good tips hints and tricks. So i hope that some of these pictures will fuel your imagination and get you into the mood of exciting new projects and crafting ideas.

Space marine captain atop a greek pillar ruin

On the left you can see that I have placed a Spacemarine Captain to show you that although the terrain is slightly larger it is still relative to the model itself so as not to dwarf the model too much, such as In the picture above of the Elven Weystone/ Landmark Oblisk. This obelisk was made using cereal box card as corrugated cardboard was not flexible enough. I also stuck on green gems in teh middle as well as painted some high Elf Runes and stuck some stones at the bottom, to add some weight to the base.

early stages of corrugated Iron Shelter

On te right here you can see the stages of making a "Corrugated Iron" shelter out corrugated cardboard. what i did was to strip one of teh plain sides of teh cardboard to expose teh corrugations , which perfectly mimick what corrugated iron looks like. I then decided that it would look great for a terrain piece and so gotto work building a platform and two windows so that a space marine could be on teh top or teh bottom and shoot through teh window if necessary at teh enemy.  I also put in some "bullet holes" by making small indents and holes with my pencil so that it looked as though it had been shot at a couple of times. I also added some rocks and stones to teh base so as to weigh it down alightly, there is nothing more annoying when playing a  game and you accidentally knock teh gaming terrain. there is a small platform between the top window and bottom window although you may not be able to see it. 

back of shelter 

On the left you can clearly see where i decided to put the platform and yes space marines can jump using a jetpack. There are obviously set rules on how to go about doing this in the Rules Book. To also make the platform say where it is i put barriers on either side so that the soldiers could get full protection form the left and right hand sides if needs be. I primed the whole thing in black first so as the paint would adhere to the surface otherwise you would have a soggy piece of wargaming terrain and no one wants that!!

bottom front of shelter piece

On the right here I have painted the entire shelter in a grey colour and also added a "rust" effect by stippling on a terracotta and red brown mix of paint on the roof and around the bullet holes to make it look as though they had been there for quite a while and the weather had started oxidising it.As you can also see on the rock i painted a Dark red streak to show that a soldier had already been shot and that the blood still hadn't exactly dried out yet so was still quite fresh. I also painted "Cracks" in the corrugated iron to show that it it hadn't bee made form just one piece of corrugated iron just to add some sort of character to the terrain piece. 





Well I hope you enjoyed my terrain pieces and hope it inspires you do some as well. So remember keep those creative juices flowing and who knows , you may even start up your own business making wargaming terrain for yourself or even your friends and have a great time. 


                               Happy Wargamming and Stay in the Fight!

A Wargaming Warrrior at her best !

Hi and Welcome to my blog

Well as you can tell I'm a Hellenic Pagan, but that is not all that I am, as it is only one small bit. So if you wann know about that part of my life then I suggest you look up my "Life of a Hellenic Pagan" blog post, where I talk more in depth of my spirituality and experiences with the Olympian Gods.

Anyhooo here i will be talking about the great, popular and yet ever so expensive wargaming hobby that is the world of WARHAMMER!!! The company Games Workshop (GW for short)  is ever evolving and recently have made a few changes to their hobby line both miniature wise, paints rules etc.   So what can you expect from me on this blog you ask? well lets see shall we:

"Warhammer Wednesdays"

Ai yi yi yi yiii .....If I had a battle cry, that would deffo be it lol Yes you guessed it, I am a huge Xena Warrior Princess fan, but as the title of this section says, its will be mainly to do with Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40k, but mainly the Fantasy as, I am mainly big on the arts and crafts part of the Warhammer Gaming Hobby Industry so you will see a lot of  "How To..." articles on making terrain, painting techniques and army building etc. I will also post some of my YT vids that will be of relevance to the subject at hand as well as some YT users who may be of interest.

Media/Toys/Collectables 

Here I will be covering the toys and collectables that i have obtained from my recent travels and such and so will be doing quick reviews and oppinions on them. I will also be posting up reviews on movies and TV series that I have watched too.



May the Gods keep you and stay in the fight