One Day Build: Jedha Gaming Mat

FFG’s announcement of Star Wars: Legion at GenCon got me pretty hyped and I immediately started working on some terrain I originally had intended to use with my West End/Grenadier miniatures. 

Since I love Rogue One and especially the Jedha set, I'm obviously looking forward to have some games in this setting. Moreover, I am quite confident that the desert moon provides plenty of opportunity for thrilling scenarios, even if we might have to wait for Saw Gerrera and his Partisans for quite a while before they hit the battlefields. Therefore, I started a 6’x3’ Jedha gaming mat right away. 

Although proper gaming boards might offer better opportunites to detail your scenery, I prefer gaming mats over regular gaming boards since they are inexpensive, much easier to store and really easy to build. Furthermore, my wife had some spare cloth lying around...

I went for a rather fancy approach and used a sewing machine to seam the edges of my mat. This is highly optional though...

After that, I took all the material needed outside and prepared for texturing. For a simple desert scenery like Jedha, you basically just need cheap (!) acrylic sealant, acrylic paints and sand.

Just mix the sealant, the sand and the colours of choice and spread them violently on the prepared piece of cloth.

At this point you are actually good to go. You could already use your mat after it's fully dry. Thanks to the acrylic sealant, the mat will stay flexible and can be rolled up for easy storage and transportation. (Note that there's a lot of loose sand on the mat in this picture. This will come off once it's dry.)

I decided to add just a little extra detail by giving it a light drybrush just to make the structure of the mat pop a little.

And this is the result after a couple of hours of work. I might still add some little extra detail (grass tufts etc.) once it's fully dried, but for now my first Star Wars: Legion gaming mat is finished and ready to go...

X-Wing - Firespray Repaint

 Hello world,

as you might have noticed, I have not been that active in the hobby for the past couple of months (years). Indeed my attention was needed elsewhere which is why I am so happy to have finally found some time for the hobby again.Being a massive Star Wars fan, the recent movie left its mark on me and I could not help myself but to dedust my FFG X-Wing collection.

This is my repaint of the Firespray-31-class patrol and attack craft, best known as Boba Fett's iconic Slave 1.

Jomada - Adventures in Middle-earth

Welcome to Jomada - Adventures in Middle-earth! 

The Hobbit has hit the theatres, GW has rebooted the LotR/Hobbit SBG, and this year's Bonnheim Convention has shown once more, how much fun wargaming in Middle-earth can be. These were only three of many good reasons that led HVM, MarcK and me to the decision to combine our individual Middle-earth themed projects into one shiny new blog. On Jomada you will find showcases of our miniatures and armies, WIP shots of our latest projects, helpful tutorials, tips & tricks around the hobby and much much more. We want to lure you into the worlds of J.R.R. Tolkien, the man without whom our hobby career maybe never would have started.

Of course, the FINiatures blog will not be deserted because of this. It will live on and will be fed with all those non-Tolkien-related wargaming projects I have, but all the future Middle-earth content will move to Jomada.

Feel welcome to visit us at Jomada and please leave a comment if you have any helpful suggestions or ideas how we could improve the blog. I'm really exited!

On the Horizon...

Hungarian Archers

The Hungarians are upon us!

I recently finished these Hungarian riders. Ebob has sculpted these beautiful miniatures in commission for Tankred who will make them available via Heer46 in the near future. Ebob's sculpts are (as always) incredibly beautiful. As I've heard there will be a pack of 16 riders in the end.

More information on the Hungarians can be found in the German Sweetwater Forums.

 

Although I painted the miniatures in historical fashion, I probably won't use them in historical context. As all of Ebob's works, the Hungarian match perfectly with the LotR scale. For me, these miniatures seem perfectly fit to represent an Easterling tribe. Maybe I'll use them as Khand mercenaries or even mercenaries in service of the merchants of the city of Dale. If GW's SBG rules don't provide me with a fitting profile, the SAGA rules probably will...

Ebob Normans

Just took a picture of my latest purchase...

Ebob Miniatures has released some awesome Norman infantry. I immediatly had to get some copies of these and ordered all 16 of it. Indeed I am totally amazed. In my eyes, these are some of the greatest sculpts I have seen from Robert so far.

Although my first idea was to paint them as Night's Watch for ASoIaF wargames, these would look great amongst GW's LotR/The Hobbit miniatures as well. I already have some ideas in mind and will hopefully be able to show you the first results in some days. The comparison shot shows that they perfectly blend with the LotR/Hobbit range.