Moongrunt Terrain from Brigade Models

 

So with the completion* of two 15mm forces for "Moongrunt" (Chinese PLSF taikonauts and United States NASA astronauts) the next thing was whip up a bit of terrain for battlefield dressing. Rocks and craters are great but a couple of structures would be ideal. Enter Brigade Models (UK).

These little structures are excellent. They're one-piece resin castings (the dish on the larger building is a separate metal part) and practically no cleanup is needed before painting.

 

I primed this Storage Dome with matt white spraypaint and painted in the grey panels (Mechanicus Standard Grey), then applied some oversized decals I'd had made for my Hammer's Slammers project in 2012!

The other building (Utility Dome) was primed grey and that was an error I won't repeat. The panels took a million coats of white paint to get smooth. Ugh.

I built this structure with the comms dish. I got two metal comms dishes from Brigade in a small baggie - but unfortunately they didn't include any parts to mount the dish to the port on top of the structure. So I had to scratch build that out of scrap plastic sprue. Annoying but not a major problem.

I also got a couple of large fuel or oxygen tanks with cool little keypads. I really shoulda taken some closeups of these eh!

 
The structures are great and will be useful when we set up a game. Service from Brigade was great, shipping was expensive as it always is from the UK. Easy to paint of course and nice to get this out of the way and back to the Little Bighorn project...

*I said "completion" but the project likely isn't complete... I had an email exchange with GZG's Jon Tuffley who said that he's got some crew-served heavy weapons for Moongrunt coming down the pike in the next few months... I can't wait!

Killzone Upgrade: Shrine Statue

I'm always on the lookout for terrain and other stuff for my Sisters of Battle, so when I got an email from Games Workshop back in July to say that the Shrine Statue would be made available on a temporary basis, I couldn't get my wallet out fast enough. Of course GW themselves operate on a different timeline...

 

One of the annoyances in ordering stuff for delivery to our local Games Workshop WARHAMMER store is that the company gives you no idea when your stuff has arrived. After waiting four months I decided on a whim to check the order status on my Warhammer account... was I ever surprised to see that the order had been delivered two weeks before. They certainly kept that to themselves.

So off I went on Thursday night to the Warhammer store to pick up my goodie, assembled it on Friday night, and painted it on Saturday. It's a pretty neat terrain piece and is certainly impressively large, I guess that explains the $50CAD price tag (not unreasonable for a GW kit nowadays I s'pose). But it was pretty easy to put together.

As for paint, I hit the Internet for ideas and found a chap on Reddit who helpfully explained how he painted his model in one day. "That'll suit me down to the ground," I thought. The formula was to spray undercoat the statue part with Wraithbone spraypaint, apply some Seraphim Sepia shade, then drybrush back up with Wraithbone. I certainly wasn't up for paying $30 for a can of spraypaint that I'd use once, so I undercoated with Krylon satin white and brushed on the Wraithbone. I left the "statue part" separate from the base and painted each separately for ease of access. The base part I attached to a 3" round base and sprayed black, then painted the skulls with Celestra Grey, then Wraithbone. I washed both the statue and the skulls with Seraphim Sepia then drybrushed back up with Wraithbone, done.

I drybrushed the base bit with Dark Rubber and Mechanicus Standard Grey, then painted the brass bits Retributor Armour washed Agrax Earthshade. The candles were painted Khorne Red, then highlighted Mephiston Red and Evil Sunz Scarlet. The flames were painted Corax White then Imperial Fist contrast paint. Looks OK I reckon.

Here's the piece alongside the giant Sisters Cathedral, I think it'll fit in nicely on an urban table for the Sisters - the next outing I have planned for them is a game vs Orks for New Year's Day. I managed to pick up a used copy of the 5th Edition Ork Codex on the weekend so that should do.

Lastly... a bit of a Warhammer rant. I was surprised but not surprised to see some shrinkflation on the GW paint front. Wash pots were 24ml but now are down to 18ml. Was there a corresponding 25% reduction in price? I think you know the answer.

Cheers!

Middle Earth Terrain

 The first of my post-AHPC XV projects are some pieces of Middle Earth terrain that were prepared for the painting challenge, but put on hold when terrain was dropped from scoring status. These are two sets of hard plastic terrrain from Games Workshop - 'Ruins of Middle Earth' and 'Ruins of Osgiliath' that I acquired years ago. They have since been rolled into a single box with some deletions.

First up is the 'Ruins of Middle Earth. It consisted of two identical sprues of ruin corners, some fallen pillars, a fallen statue, a standing statue, and a campfire. The standing statue was glued to a 35mm wooden disc to make it less prone to falling over on the gaming table. The ruin corners were only a few millimeters in thickness, so I decided to beef them up a bit with a thicker layer of XPS foam cut using my Proxxon hot wire cutter. I glued the foam to the inner side of the the corners, clamped in place until the glue was dry. I then trimmed them with a handheld hot wire cutter, cut some stonework into the surface, and applied a coat of Mod Podge. Once that was dry, they were primed dark grey with a rattle can, and then dry brushed with light grey latex paint, followed by white latex paint. The wooden platform was painted using acrylics, as was the campfire and adjacent weapons and shields.

Original box art for the 'Ruins of Middle Earth' set

'Ruins of Middle Earth'

 

The second set was marketed as 'Ruins of Osgiliath' and had structures with much thicker walls, and stonework on both sides. The set I got was slightly warped. The large wall sections rocked back and forth a bit, so I evened out the bottoms using epoxy putty to prevent that from happening. I also added some walls to the section of stairs using some plastic card and epoxy putty as I didn't like the void underneath. Again the statues were glued to 35mm discs to make the base wider. Once all the glue was dry and the putty had hardened, the pieces were painted in the same manner as the first set.

Original box art for the 'Ruins of Osgiliath' set

 

'Ruins of Osgiliath' (A side)

'Ruins of Osgiliath' (B side)

Both of these sets are now out of production in this format. The thin walled sections from the first set have been dropped, and the remaining fallen pillars, statues, and campfire all rolled into one box with the Osgiliath ruins.

Thanks for stopping by.

Warning Flags and Vending Machines!

Taking a short break from the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge to post a couple small terrain projects - terrain doesn't count in the Challenge anyway. First up are some warning flags for the Chemical Commies.

I designed these on the computer (finding a suitable Cyrillic font was the biggest challenge), printed them, and based thm on washers. The basic design was cribbed from a Ron Volstad illustration in Osprey's "Elite" volume #12 - "Inside the Soviet Army Today."  

Of course, "today" does a lot of work in that title - the book was published in 1987, but is perfect for what I need it for, since our 28mm Cold War projects are set in the mid-'80s to mid-'90s.

The other quick project was a couple vending machines. These I got from Meeplemart last year,  I gave these quick paintjobs and they'll be great as scatter terrain in our modern and sci-fi gaming. Above you can see a Jokaero using his digital digit to select a soft drink.

"Electrolytes - they're what plants crave!" Of course you gotta have a Brawndo machine. I printed off the graphics and glued them to the machine, turned out all right I think.

"The Thirst Mutilator!"

The last machine didn't have a ton of surface area for clever graphics...

...so I stuck some on the side. I'm not that familiar with the Fallout franchise but the graphics are great.

Lastly we've got a cigarette machine. I choose "Kool" branding for the unit. You used to see these in bars and pubs all the time of course but no longer. Fortunately in our past- and future-gaming worlds nobody suffers any ill effects.
 

Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge XIV #9 - Special Themed Challenges

 In the three years in which I have participated in the painting challenge I have done quite a few of the themed challenges from the planets of the Challenge Quadrant in 2022, the movie lots of the Challenge Studio in 2023, or the book sections in the Challenge Library in 2024. They have been a good way to use up some of the oddball figures I have in my collection of unpainted minis, as well as giving me the impetus to complete projects that have long lingered in my storage boxes. During AHPC XIV I completed 19 special challenges, plus had two rides on 'Lady Sarah's book cart'.

I have already posted some of these in the earlier posts related to last year's challenge, so this post will be a summary, with pictures of those figures not already posted. 

Overdues & Returns - early WW2 German cavalry and wounded

History - early WW2 Polish 10th Motorized Brigade

New Acquisitions - early WW2 French Light Mechanized Division

Fantasy - Easterling Warriors and Command

Children's Books - Bunny Stormtrooper

Local History - Idols of Torment 

Romance - Han Solo and Leia Organa

Sci-Fi - Scotia Grendel Armoured Personnel Carriers and Tracked Vehicles 

Manga & Graphic Novels - Archive Star Wars miniatures

Lady Sarah's Book Cart - Ground Zero Games female militia troopers

Statue of a Famous Person - Free French commander General  Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque converted from a 54mm American tank crewman

 Maritime - a Royal Navy longboat converted from a plastic toy sailboat

Nature - some jungle terrain with Easter Island heads

Gift Shop - a Games Workshop Lord of the Rings figure of Gothmog that went to fellow Conscript, Dallas

DYI - some brick and wrought iron fencing for my Polish Post Office Danzig made from polystyrene, cardboard, and vintage toy parts

 

Literature - a figure of Viggo Mortensen as Captain Alatriste converted from a Games Workshop figure of Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn

 Travel - a 54mm Seven Years War Prussian musketeer associated with a visit to Sanssouci in Potsdam in 2001

Oversized Books - an 80mm Stadden figure of a British Bren gunner of 14th Army in Burma during the Second World War

Biography - in this case it was Autobiographical with a 54mm figure of a British grenadier of the 40th (Hopson's) Regiment of Foot, circa 1760 depicting me in one of my re-enactment uniforms

Rare & Antique Books - a hard plastic flat from the 1930s that belonged to my father when he was a boy, depicting a German infantryman on parade 

That concludes my retrospective of AHPC XIV. Thanks for reading. If you have any questions, or would like more information on any of these figures or terrain projects, please leave a comment, and I will do my best to reply.

 

Pegasus Models Gothic Cathedral and Ruined Building

Big terrain pieces are cool. They make awesome centrepieces for a table. If they're buildings with detailed interiors, they can drive some very fun and engaging gameplay too. But they do have one drawback - they take up a ton of storage space.

There is a bit of a backstory on this amazing piece. It was built by friend of the Conscripts Paul K., from whom I recently picked up a bunch of models in a bit of a hobby selloff. One of Paul's conditions, though, was that I take this as well. 

It's an injection-molded plastic model kit from Pegasus Hobbies. I'm not sure exactly what exact kit(s) this was built from but it's the Gothic City for sure. The parts are super-detailed and very sturdy; this is injection-molded plastic, not brittle 3D-printed resin, and is all the better for it.

As the model didn't have floors, I made some out of plasticard. Otherwise the second-floor doors would be opening out into empty space and we cannot have that can we!

You can see the scale of the structure more clearly here. The Dialogus is proclaiming from the balcony, accompanied by a Sister Superior and Imagifer standard bearer.

You get an even better sense of the scale here when vehicles come on the scene.

Throw a nice statue on a pillar in there too!

Paul also made me take gave me another ruined building made from the Pegasus parts.

This'll made a nice addition to the Cathedral surrounds on the table.

I did a bit more detailing on the Cathedral before calling it done...

The kit included a ton of cool detail parts, like these light sconces and all the gargoyles you saw in the other pics.

I painted the doors dark brown as shown in the Pegasus promo pics, but didn't do a lot of detailing on them. Honestly once the doors are assembled on the model, it's very difficult to get your brush in to paint the details. If I was building this kit I'd paint the doors before final assembly.

This is gonna be super-fun to play a game on. Maybe Orks vs. Sisters in the battle for Armageddon...?

That's likely enough pics of these buildings but I can't help snapping away, they're just so photogenic. Despite the space they take up in storage I'm really glad to have them, they look so cool (especially the giant Cathedral) and they should be fun to play a game with! Thanks Paul!