Getting Your Kids into the Hobby

I didn't get much hobbying done in the last couple of weeks but once more realized how much I love the miniatures gaming hobby.

My 3-year-old is a real nosy-parker when I'm painting miniatures and usually riddles me with questions if she catches me in the act. Her curiosity was the perfect excuse to visit Hamburg's Miniatur Wunderland ("Miniature Wonderland", the world's largest model railroad layout) with the family.

Just as I hoped, 1.499m² of miniature landscape didn't just inspire my future projects but left its mark on my daughter.

Having confirmed that she actually likes miniatures, we wasted no time, picked some "knights" from our local Games Workshop and went to work. Following her orders we primed the miniatures green and red and then she went on painting all the details with colours of her choice. Once she had practiced some drybrushing we washed the entire miniatures with Agrax Earthshade. The little one was super excited and did a tremendous job here. We painted the miniatures in two one-hour sessions and she stayed focussed all the time and really seemed to enjoy this experience.

So, this is her final result and I really love it. Proud father speaking here, so these might actually be far worse than I think they are but I was seriously surprised at how commited she was to paint these well. Although Age of Sigmar hasn't been on my radar so far, I might have to look into it now. The rules are free and Jamuary and February White Dwarfs just feaured an AoS Skirmish campaign that might be exactly the right scenario for future gaming sessions. I'll keep you updated.

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Goodbye 2018, Hello 2019

We're already two weeks into 2019, time for some new year's resolution.

It's fair to say that 2018 got me back into the hobby. With the announcement of Star Wars: Legion in 2017 it was only a matter of how deep I would go... ...and I went as deep as I could. I've gotten into terrain building, started and almost finished my Rebel army, got introduced to the rabbit hole called 3D-printing and even got hooked on GW systems again at the same time. 

The more time I spent with Legion, the more I got talking with fellow hobbyists about how the hobby had changed while I was on standby. To my surprise I actually liked some of the changes a lot. GW, which had almost driven me out of the hobby for good with ridiculous pricing and lacking support of LotR/The Hobbit/Middle-Earth, actually made a huge turn for the better and seems to have remembered to adress their customers as hobbyists first before taking all their money (Yeah, I know what I signed up for...). I loved releases like Kill Team or Blackstone Fortress and actually consider giving the whole Middle-Earth thing a second chance. I even like going to their stores now...^^ 

But how come and what does this mean for 2019? 

Although both Legion and Kill Team are very competitive, they have great potential for narrative play. As someone who invests a lot of time into his miniatures because he wants to get immersed into a game's lore while playing. This takes me back to my RPG days and the time I started wargaming and I love that narrative play and miniature based RPGs seem to be so popular right now. I'm thrilled to dig deeper!

On the other hand, 2018 made me aware that my hobby-related media consumption has changed a lot since I had my hobby break. I used to be very active on forums and draw a lot of inspiration from there. This has changed, sadly. Although I love those communities, I hardly seem to find time to participate as much as I would like to. Same goes for this personal blog. I had some very productive months but abandoned it completely for most of the year. Instead I posted a lot on facebook and got inspired by other people's work there while listening to podcasts or watching clips on Youtube... Convenience seemed to be key, especially in busy weeks when I didn't find time for the hobby myself. 

Despite knowing that, I will not abandon this blog. I like showcasing my miniatures here and writing up tutorials from time to time. It's as much part of the hobby for me as reading a rulebook is. And yet I want 2019 to be the year that I expand my media portfolio and give other platforms a try too. I just made a start by (re-) activating my Instagram account: Finiatures on Instagram. There you will find all that stuff that usually doesn't make its way to the blog: Gaming, WIPs, con visits... Nevertheless, this place stays my Black Library...

Well, nuff with that... TLDR anyways... Time for pictures:

First weekend in January is Szenario-Con weekend. The Con started out as the annual meet-up of a community based around the LotR SBG by GW. It has come a long way since but still feels like coming home for Christmas. This year, some fellow hobbyists and I had a dedicated Star Wars play-area to get super geeky in...

Shifting Lands and Tabletop-Fantasywelten had a great terrain building workshop. I didn't know I want a Proxxon so bad...

Star of the show was HvM's Jedha table. He took terrain building to the next level. This is closer to the movie set than it is to a gaming table...

@the_red_hut finally took his Mimban table for a spin. My pictures didn't turn out great, but check his Instagram account. Awesome scratch builts. I really love the WWI feel of his terrain and minis.

Wait, there's more...^^ arts-n-more's Batuu table is just as awesome. Matthias XPS skills are unrivalled... Being trapped between Geboom's terrain building workshop and this flawless craftmanship took a toll on my sanity... I just don't have the space for a Proxxon... gggnnnn...

It needs to be said that poor Matthias was quite busy hosting Legion games while we sat back and did some more hobbying. Shame on us!

Well, what did I do that weekend? It had been my first weekend of hobbying since October, so I decided to finally paint some minis:

This is just a fraction of what happend at Szenarion-Con 2019. If you want more photos, please check Frank's gallery at https://szenario-con.de/2019/01/bildergalerie-szenario-2019/.

Szenario 2019

Happy New Year everyone. 

It has been awfully quiet here for the last couple of weeks. This is going to change soon. I'm just packing my backs as I'm heading to this year's Szenario-Con tomorrow morning.

Unfortunately I didn't manage to finish my own Star Wars Legion projects last year but I will happily support some fellow hobbyists with their Legion presentations. I'm pretty sure this will involve taking a photo or two...^^

Kill Team - Space Wolves

Once again, Games Workshop has me in its greedy clutches. I saw this coming when they announced the "relaunch" of the Lord of the Rings SBG but to my surprise I got hooked on the new edition of Kill Team... So here we are... After resisting the call of the 40k verse since its 2nd edition, I finally surrendered. 

I got my brushes out again last weekend and painted my first Kill Team: Glorious Space Wolves in Mark III armor.

These guys have been trapped in the Warp since the Burning of Prospero and have just been spit out now with the coming of the Great Rift.

You all know this feeling, right? You're happily butchering your way through some heretic sorcerers and suddenly there's a bright blue light. Before you know it, you're somewhere completely different, your company is nowhere to be found, your Primarch is MIA, your phone is dead and the Emperor looks changed too... This is what happened to these guys and this is why they look so angry.

This Kill Team is at 98 points now. I had a first game with them and like how they played but my roster will be expanded soon. The sergeant and the gunners will get some more weapon options (weapons are magnetized) and I might even add some Primaris to the mix. Since they most definetly won't work in the pre-Heresy paint scheme I used, I will probably pick one of the Chapters from the Ultima founding. Castellans of the Rift look nice...

Citadel Painting Handle... Can't believe I bought one...

Yeah, well... The Citadel painting handle is one of those hobby products I never really thought I would ever need. Since there have been some mishaps last month and my left hand was immobilized for some time, I had a sudden change of mind:

Don't Stop Me Now

I was indeed very pleased with the result and I'm actually thinking about getting some more... It has been a great help finishing the Priority Supplies for Star Wars Legion and some Micro Art Studio Laser Towers for my Legion board.

A chest of Lando's favourite wine.

Ready to see some action...

Imperial Terrain - Desert Tower and Mechanic's House

Another two 3D-printed houses left the workbench: Imperial Terrain's Desert Tower and Mechanic's House.

Both buildings belong to my absolute favourites in the IT range (although Dave is constantly pumping out new favourites...). While the Mechanic's House was painted right after printing, completion of the Desert Tower took a bit longer: It was part of the first shipment of Imperial Terrain buildings I received almost a year ago.

Main reason for the painting delay was having to fix the deformed pipe detailthat runs along the tower. This copy of the tower had been one of Dave's early test prints so this obviously isn't an issue if you order from IT these days. I hesitated over it for quite some time but it eventually turned out to be an easy fix. I removed the misshaped part, remodelled it by hand and sanded the whole thing down until it looked right.

Both buidings are quite an important addition to my table as their copper roofs will provide some nice contrast to the brick coloured gaming mat. As a result I went quite heavy on the Nihilakh Oxide I used for the verdigris effect.

The table is finally starting to look alright: