The Workbench has reached capacity!

Too many different projects and none of them are getting done because of life. Well for the past two months I’ve been cleaning up and organizing my hobby stuff but I haven’t put a lot into actually doing my hobby stuff.  So I’m going to try and change that. Starting Monday, I’ve vowed to work at least a half hour on hobby stuff every day and write about it here. (Edit:  As much fun as describing how I put each and every plank on my ruined building sounds, I think I'll not post everyday.) What I will count towards that half hour will either be gaming or modeling. Since it is easier, and more sensible for this blog, modeling will make up most of my posts. But since I do play Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2^nd edition every Wednesday, I’ll drop a note about that as well. This was all spurred on by my dusty crusty friend at ‘From the dust of the Ancients,’ here: http://chaingunblues.blogspot.com/ He will be doing the same thing and to make things more interesting, we will have a bet going as well. I’ll have more on that in the future.

Now over the past summer my interests have turning from super heroes, to grot commandos, to Call of Cthulhu, to Imperial armored trains, to Warhammer Quest, to GW Giants, to Vampire Counts, to Mordheim, and now to Necrons. Plus if you add in other unfinished projects like the Junk Town and one can see why I never get anything done. So now my goal is to limit myself a bit and work on two broad categories – fantasy and sci-fi. J

Ok, it is not as bad as it seems.  Here is the breakdown:

Fantasy:
·         Army: Vampire Counts
·         Mordheim Band: Vampire Counts
·         Terrain: Empire Ruins (Mordeim Buildings)
·         Rules: Mordheim, Warhammer RPG, and maybe Warhammer Fantasy Battle

Sci-fi:
·         Army: Necrons
·         Rogue Trader: Odds and Ends for a campaign
·         Terrain: Junk Town and Space Port
·         Rules: 40k Apoc., Tomorrow’s War, Rogue Trader RPG

Two things of note: Each category has a strong theme, and for me, a pretty narrow focus. More importantly, there is nothing here that is a new project. And none of the projects are less than 75% done.

Zombie and Black Dragons

Ok, enough of my blabbering. Here are some pictures of the new GW Zombie and Black Dragons. Both very are nice.

You may have noticed I changed the positions of the wings. Though I liked the look of the wings on the giant bat thing, I thought the wing configuration on the dragon was not very menacing. To me, it look like it was holding up some pants. So, I just switched the wings around and angled them up.

I left the rider off the Black Dragon as I want him to be multipurpose. 

DCC RPG part 2

I'm not one that believes in fate or destiny. But I find it unusual that I started reading Jack Vance for the 1^st time about a year ago, I started re-reading the Chronicles of Amber this past month, and I was planning on going to Half-Price to look for Lankhmar - all before I was turned on to the DCC RPG. Of course that doesn’t mean I’ll ever play, but it does mean that the RPG should be a good fit for me if I ever did.

Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG

http://www.goodman-games.com/5070preview.html

Ok, this looks promising. An RPG based on the pivotal influences of D&D that makes use of modern RPG design. It is about time. One of the things that bugged*1 me about the latest incarnations of fantasy RPGs is the fact they feel to me like they are based only on the prior editions and literature written from those prior RPG editions. Specifically, it feels like the authors of Pathfinder only ever read 3^rd edition D&D, Ebberon and the Dragonlance novels. (To be fair, 4^th edition D&D feels like the authors only read the The Wheel of Time Novels and Paranormal Romance and they played World of Warcraft.)*2 Think of it another way, say you were writing historical fiction based on Xenophon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenophon). Would it be better to base it on his writings, writings of authors’ contemporary to him and modern archeological finds related to his time period, or would it be better to simply base it on Robin Waterfield’s Xenophon's Retreat: Greece, Persia, and the End of the Golden Age? Well, modern RPGs feel like the second, perhaps the DCC RPG will feel like the 1^st.

*1 This has been something the bugged me since 2^nd edition D&D. I should say something in the back of my mind bugged me about the fantasy RPGs that were rooted in D&D since 2^nd edition. I never really had a good handle on it until reading the premise behind the DCC RPG.

*2 To be fair, I have no idea as to how well read the authors’ of Pathfinder or D&D 4^th edition are. My guess is, a lot more so then me. They can write better was well. But they fall short, in my eyes, of Gygax and Arneson. They may be better by the letter of the rule, but not by the spirit.

Trololling Saruman

This is stuck in my brain. It shall now be stuck in yours:

Grot Commandos and the Grot Train Robbery

The Grot Commandos were created for the Grot Train Robbery. We never got to the point where they were unleashed on the table. Here is a shot from just before they were finished. At this point, I just need to pick out the details, add the base texture, and dull coat.

As for the Grot Train Robbery. There are some nice pictures here at From the dust of the Ancients and E-ville Armory.

Grot Commandos

I found some pictures I took awhile back. These have come along nicely since then.

Group Shot

Test Color

These were primed with Krylon Plastic Fusion Black. The prime ends up being glossier then I like. It made putting on the test color slightly more difficult. I ended up dry brushing the entire figure with German Field Grey and worked from there.