Lead Painter's League 5 - Rnd 1 notes

I have entered the Lead Painter's League competition for the first time, so I thought I would give some extra information about what I did for the competition. I thought I would gives some details on the figures, painting and basing, and then the photography.

for those who are not aware of the competition have a look here, its pretty cool

http://www.lead-adventure.de/index.php?board=22.0

So here is the pic in question


The Figures

First up Madame is a RAFM dilettante, her mystic is a RAFM cultist, while her driver, bodyguard and secretary are Innocent Bystanders from Brigade. The car is a Lledo Rolls Royce Phantom II.

Since the 1st round theme was civilians, I found it hard to find 5 civilian figures all with the sme theme, so this was the best I could come up with. My teams for the next 9 rounds are alot stronger.

all figs were painted with acrylic paints being a mix of humbrol, vallejo, then magic ink (sepia) washed. I varnish in gloss and I like it :-), I know heaps of people don't though.

All figures were flocked with a fine green flock which was then painted; for the bystanders it was black dry dry brushed grey to replicate tarmac, its a little dull I know but it works pretty well. For Madame and the Mystic it was the same except using red paint and no dry brushing, surprisingly, its a pretty good match for carpet. Some people may have noticed that Madame seems to have a very tall base, RAFM figures come on very heavy bases and because of her dress I couldn't cut it off so I built it up instead

Taking the photo

I took the photo using a Pentax K-7, with a 90mm lens on a 1 sec exposure (with a cable release) at F36 using a mix of natural and Fluro light. I manually set the white balance but the colour is still a little off. Also just as an aside the colour is much more intense than I thought, I did my editing on a laptop but seeing it on the compettion page on a normal desktop PC, the difference is quite marked. I think I may have to resubmit 1 of my other photos after viewing them again.

This pic has probably the weakest compostion of all the photos I plan to take for the competition because I don't enough 20th C terrain to set the scene, so I just kept it simple. It didn't turn out too bad, anyway more next week !

Saving Private Lurtz

I'm not a massive fan of the Games Workshop Lord of the Rings miniatures in general but I DO like the Uruk-hai. They're nasty looking, wear plenty of very "functional" armour and just generally seem very much like I always imagined them to look.

Having finished a "good" army for Hordes of the Things I decided I'd give the Uruk-hai a go for my first "bad" army. I picked up a good number of the Fighting Uruk-hai off eBay for a nice cheap price, all pike. Unfortunately "a couple" with snapped pikes turned out to be almost a quarter of the miniatures and the majority of the broken pikes (present in the picture and therefore fixable) turned out to be just one when they arrived. Hmmm....

Anyway, trying not to let that annoy me I set about what I like to call Saving Private X, or in this case Saving Private Lurtz. By that I mean picking up some badly painted or bashed about miniatures and "saving" them. Sometimes that means surgery, replacements or whatever. In this case an armless guy will appear later as a crossbow wielding chap, several more have changed pose slightly and had replacement pike installed. The whole lot then got a blast of matt black spray. Even at that point the neglect of the previous owner seemed miles away.

A few hours and lots of dry brushing and inking later and I now have 22 quite useful pike, ready to be based up in sixes as Spears for HotT. Tim, aka Saskminigamer, has done a very similar force to what I'm working on but didn't use the levelled pike figs as they might catch on opposing stands when ranking up. I'm going to give it a try. Madness? We'll see...

So here they are in all their as yet unbased glory. Remember to click for bigger pics...

I've got a couple more pikes in the post along with a shed load more Fighting Uruks with hand weapons, plus Scouts of various flavours too, a Cave Troll and of course Saruman. Once all are complete I should have about 36 points worth. Stay tuned...

Cheers,
Millsy

Thank you Battlefront, and goodnight...

This is going to be a bit of a rant, so if you don't like reading that kind of thing it's best you look away now.

I've been a pretty damn loyal customer of Battlefront for a long time now. At last count I've purchased something like AUD$5,000 worth of their kit so hopefully that gives some credence to me writing this. I'm trying not to sound like a whining, jilted ex-lover chucking my toys out of the pram because I don't like change but I'll let you be the judge... ;-)

So here's the thing. At some point Battlefront (makers of the Flames of War range of 15mm miniatures and rules) turned into a Big Games Company with all the downsides that entails. In the beginning Battelfront marketed themselves as (and I believe really were) a games company run BY gamers FOR gamers. Not any more. Don't get me wrong, companies should make a profit and reward their staff well with decent salaries, etc. but there are limits.

What provoked this post is a recent development between Maelstrom Games, a UK mail order / storefront  and Battlefront. I've read a fair bit of both sides of the argument and from what I can see Battlefront are taking issue with Maelstrom selling their kit cheap. Cheaper that most, if not everyone else. Battlefront see this as some sort of threat to their storefront retailers because it eats into their margins. They believe that in the end gamers will lose out. How does that help gamers though, especially ones without access to a good local games store? It doesn't. It's anti-competitive and very close to, if not really and truly price fixing.

Moreover, the way in which Battlefront have dealt with Maelstrom left a bad taste in my mouth. Business is business but that doesn't mean you have to treat people with a lack of respect or can't have a bit of give and take.

Unfortunately this episode wasn't any real surprise as it fits well with the direction Battlefront have been heading for quite a while now IMHO. This got me thinking about all the changes that Battlefront have made over the last few years that have gradually been eroding my liking for both their products and their way of doing business. Here's some of the stuff off the top of my head...

Quality. Since the move to Malaysia for manufacturing the models have been getting progressively worse and worse. The resin is often broken, the metal littered with mistcasts and the mispacking has increased dramatically. I recently bought a whole pile of Russian stuff and one of every three resin bodies was broken. Yes they replaced them but the percentage of damaged good to begin with was ridiculous. Customers are still paying the same for a model though. That means Battlefront are making more money at customer's expense.

Less for your dollar. Remember when you got a bailed crew figure with a tank? Or when you took in an old rulebook and got a free replacement? How good was that? Nobody else cared about their customers that much. Not any more though. That costs money.

Not listening to your customers. How long did it take Battelfront to get round to Early War? I know lots of people were interested in Late War but a whole lot more were not. Moreover, why do we need codex supplement after supplement covering a few weeks at a time when people are begging for consolidated theatre books and more scenarios?

There's plenty more but that's enough by way of example. So what does this mean? It means that Battlefront have shifted from truly caring about customer satisfaction to being a business driven purely by profit. Where once they understood their success was based on loyalty they now believe that for every customer who walks away another will turn up to take their place.

Fortunately there are plenty of alternatives out there at a decent price. I'll continue to buy models and support Maelstrom because they have always done the right thing by me. A little loyalty and respect goes a long way...

PS. Feel free to comment. I'm interested to hear what others think.

PPS. If you are not aware, Maelstrom are selling all their remaining Flames of War stock at 25% off retail. I picked up a bunch of stuff to fill holes in what I already owned so I can start afresh with non-Battlefront miniatures for future projects. It's a shame it has to be that way but there you go.

Cheers,
Millsy

T-34s. A whole mess of em...

This was my Christmas project this year. Having sold Cory my old Tankovy for which I felt less that enthused I used the opportunity to do another. Don't ask why. I'm not 100% sure myself to be honest. Obviously it has something to do with my collecting issues but let's leave it at that.

So here it is. A Flames of War Late War Tankovy. I bought so many T-34s because I want to be able to do three lots of eight or two lots of ten (the third lot of eight would support my Strelk when fielded together). Remeber to click for the larger versions.

As is traditional for us on long weekends we have a big battle planned - a sort of late war Kursk. 4,000pts a side, almost all amour. We'll post some pics after the event.

Cheers,
Millsy

Diverted!

The handsome chap above is the reason things have been quiet on the Ogre front lately.

In short, a young friend got the Assault on Black Reach boxed set for Christmas, and asked me to paint up his commander figures for him. I hope to have a picture of the Ork Warboss to post here, but in the meantime, here's the Ultramarine Captain in all his glory.

I'm quite pleased with the result, and it was well worth the time taken to get it just right. I'm also impressed with the quality of the modelling on this guy, and the amount of detail certainly warrants taking care with the paint job.

So who knows, maybe I'll grab a box and resume work on my 40K Orks at some point... although I confess that I also offered to paint up the Black Reach Ork Nobz for young Patrick, since they're also very nice figs, but the commission will have to end there. Pretty good practice though, and I've picked up a few pointers on making the most of the models. Patrick is painting his rank-and-file groundpounders as we speak, so that will work out nicely.

But, I made a commitment to complete the Ogres to a playable level, so that's going to be the project for the foreseeable future. Still, it does you good to get out once in a while, and break the monotony!

More later....