Baldur the Stonecleaver

Painted

I worry when I broaden the coverage here that gain some new audience at the expense of boring some of core readers. There's no way I'm doing more than one blog, though, so I'll have to trust if you're interested in what I'm doing generally you'll likely be interested stuff you may not have signed on for. With that I'm going to post some Hordes Circle Orboros figs I painted back in 2008 but never got around to showing. 2008, already a long time ago. See, despite these being the newest figures I've shown they're practically vintage, or maybe even old school? ;)

Anyway, I can't call myself the biggest fan of Privateer Press and what goes on there today but back in the day I painted quite a bit of it on commission under the Null Horizon Studio aegis (what I've got around to sharing of this you can see over at my CMON gallery), and collected a fair bit of it myself. Maybe more on my mixed feelings about the Iron Kingdoms later but I'm excited enough about the particular figures I collected and painted.

Why share these today? Mostly because I ran into another Hordes/Warmachine player and may dust these figures off after years of dormancy, and also because I just happen to be photographing the stuff I never got around to before and have come to these by chance.>/p>

Of the armies I collected I got Circle Orboros to the table first as this was the least ambitious of the the projects, had fewer figures and fewer hard decisions about schemes and conversions. I've got a fully painted, playable force now and just a few more things left to paint for it before I can call it done done, but of course who knows if I'll ever get back to it.

So here's Baldur, done in a scheme that fits the canon pretty well with a patina effect on the leather somewhat in the Rackham style done with glazes and scratch-like mostly transparent highlights. In the course of painting this I thought about stone swords and whether a good idea, and after a time on wikipedia reading about minerals and the hardness scale and what not I think if you had the magical strength to wield it and the enchantment to resist shattering from a lateral blow it's a better idea than I thought at first.

I like this figure a lot. I've seen it catch flak for being static, etc, but that's kind of the point. He's got that immovable object vibe going, and his hands are just expressive enough to convey he's working some earth magic. Below he's shown amidst his shifting stones.

These figures were released 2006 and I'm not sure of the sculptor. Please drop a comment if you know.

As always, the collection can be viewed in its entirety at flickr.

Two Dwarven Forge inn layouts

Plug and play "floor plans" for your games

When it comes to Dwarven Forge layouts I don't even aspire to the kind of crazed inventiveness typically on display on the Dwarven Forge forum. But I was playing around with the blocks one day, making two inns for my campaign, and think they're worth sharing, as, unlike most layouts you see, these are easy for anyone to duplicate and throw in their own campaign. If I remember right I used two basic sets (one was not quite enough), the bar set and the stairs, bed and fireplace from the additions set. Click through to flickr for room labels. If you're in a pinch for inn names the one can be the Sword & Guisarme and the other the Odious Ogre.

A source for superior slottas

Mamabigbig bases are pure win

So I may have mentioned that, while overall the low-profile bases I use for my D&D collection are my favorite, I'm going back to using slottas for my Citadel fantasy collection. Slottas have some disagreeable qualities, and since I've gone with low-profile bases so far for my orcs I'll either have to accept a bit of miss-match or go back and rebase them, but they have a number of pros too and I came to this decision after careful consideration. I'd like to get into the pros and cons in later posts, but at issue today is, for those that do slottas, where to get them?

First, though, why do I need new ones? I have a big box of nothing but slottas but sorting yielded the wrong ratio of diagonal slots to straight slots to closed top. Now, quite a few of the square ones I have are the original model that have a punched diagonal slot and an additional straight slot you can pop out yourself with a screwdriver. These are great, but I have to ration them out carefully for the reason that the straight slot of this type sits closer to the back edge than those that only have a straight slot, and this is a better fit for some figures and a worse fit for others. It's best to have a variety and I don't plan to use these rare bases on a figure that doesn't need one. The end result for me was I needed a lot more straight slot and more closed top (the closed top are needed because some figures don't look right either diagonal or straight, but need a cut of a smaller angle, in which case I cut my own slot with Dremel and cutoff wheel, or cut off the tab and glue the feet directly).

Now, also in the box are a number of off-brand slottas that have a textured edge and in some cases a more rounded corner. I need to say I really don't like these. When buying slottas online I wanted to avoid these at all costs and it's not always easy to tell from the catalog pics what you're getting.

I found a number of sources, but the was only one that had straight 20mm square slottas, pictures of quality that I could confirm the edge was smooth, and inexpensive shipping to the US (free Worldwide, as it happens) was ebay seller Mamabigbig.

Well, I got the bases, and they're perfect. They are sturdier than "name brand" ones I have already, have super-clean sides that are, again, straighter than the name brand ones, and shipped free they come to 11 to 14 cents each for infantry. There is also no sprue bur at all and the injection mark is under the base and out of site. Any size or option you can think of save 20mm round they have. In the listing titles some say Version 3.0 etc, which leads me to believe they aren't ones to settle but have done their due diligence with R&D. It's definitely paid off, as their product is superior in every way. And service was great, shipping fast and the prices as good or better than anywhere. I'd share pics but the pics in the store are as good as any I could show. My only advise to them is pick a cooler name for your store already! Anyway, highly recommended.