Lest We Forget

 It’s been a busy bunch of weeks on my side…I’ve been slowly getting through the Hulkbuster and a whole bunch of work at the same time. With recent events in Wainwright and Hamilton, this post and this month hits a bit more than usual.

Respect to any and all in uniform regardless of their role and task…thanks to the support of their friends and family, it is crucial! Lest we forget!

Images from Veterans Affairs Canada

Musings and Progress…or Lack Of

Hey everyone,

I hope your summer was an adventure and that September is finding you well. I thought that I would drop a quick progress and update post…at great risk of showing just how distracted and unfocused I can get, lol.

I was happy to be able to get a couple of games in with Duncan and Mike throughout August and into September…we were able to get some Marvel Crisis Protocol and Bolt Action in. This gave me the motivation to start plugging away at the Hulkbuster…while trying to work on some Star Wars Legion…and some moderns…and then get totally sidetracked by Trench Crusade! 

Mike very generously offered up a couple of extra warbands that he had for the Carcass front expansion. duncan took a pass and so I ended up with Believers and Heretics. So of course, I had to assemble the models and see what I had gotten myself into.

Overall, not as much painting as I’d like…I had to step back from Hulkbuster as it was not progressing the way I envisioned, so these new models were a welcome distraction. Now I just need to find some focus and work the moderns that I have which are almost done.

Here goes trying…we’ll see what I can get done over the next spell. Cheers.

2026's Trek up Mt. Shame

Painted

15mm         59

28mm+       44

Terrain      +38

  

Bought       119, +16 (more like acquired than bought, but you know)

Progress    +22

Painting Update - Enemy Spotted Studios

Howdy everyone,

I hope that everyone’s summer is going better than expected and that all is well in your respective spheres of influence. I wanted to share a quick post with you and give a quick update on my painting progress over the last week or so.

I was able to get through a couple of blister packs of figures from ESS and their In Country line. While their direction has gone more ultra-modern plus or future-modern (not sure if that is a genre, but sounds right in my head), ESS had a really great range of modern figures that my local gaming store…<<cough, Red Dragon, cough>>…had stocked for some time. The figures were a mix of metal and resin and had a great amount of detail.

The last two packs that I finished were “Gas Mask Operators”, resin…and “Killteam Operatives” that were metal. So I’m thinking the Killteam were maybe some of the first figures that ESS released. Anyway, I had a great time painting these minis up…my only beef being that the Killteam figures were a little tricky putting together. Particularly, the left arm for 2 of the minis were a little difficult to discern, so there is a chance that I may have assembled them incorrectly. I did have to make some adjustments and ‘fixes’ as I was putting them together.

However the finished product turned out really well. Inspired by Spectre Miniatures and the covert/overt operative packs, I painted up both packs as closely to each other as possible so that I ended up with a Killteam figure also wearing a gas mask for when the op goes sideways or is a little more intense and they need to lay down some smoke or gas.

Enjoy the pics. You’ll see, one of the figures was inspired by Matt Damon’s first kick at Jason Bourne, complete with a red bag.

Cheers.

Both crews, similarly painted…I took the minimalist approach to their bases, but also wanted to depict them as if they were just walking down the street and slipped into action.

“You with the red bag!! Don’t move!”…

The gas mask crew, similarly dressed as the crew above…I think my favourite is the dude in the yellow leisure/sweatsuit…I had ALOT of fun painting him up.

2026's Trek up Mt. Shame

Painted

15mm         59

28mm+       44, +8

Terrain      +38

  

Bought       103

Progress    +38

Painting Update - North Star minis

Howdy folks,

Just putting up a quick post to show some progress from the beginning of the month. I bought this blister pack from the Sentry Box in Calgary quite some time ago, but I’m finally getting it off of the painting table. The pack is from Northstar miniatures, from their Frostgrave line And they figure that it should be able to work in almost any horror, setting or Stargrave or Scrapjacks or something like that. Like really, you can’t go on an adventure and not expect to bump into something that causes a horde of rats to chase you.

For your viewing pleasure, I present to you some medievally or science fictiony plague rats…depending on your genre of choice. They were a really quick paint, didn’t take too much time at all, and were actually a lot of fun.

2026's Trek up Mt. Shame

Painted

15mm         59

28mm+       36, +2

Terrain      +38

  

Bought       103

Progress    +30

02 Hundred - The Great Escape Expansion

Howdy everyone,

Continuing to work on the metal/plastic pile of”fame”…no shame here! Having just finished the last piece in the set, I thought I would post up the 02 Hundred expansion Escape from Stalag 3…or the Great Escape for those that remember the classic movie.

The figures look great and have a fabulous amount of detail…they are metal, not plastic. This is a portion of the figures that I picked up from Cangames this year. In addition to this expansion, I also picked up the blister pack of escaped prisoners wearing civvies. Again, these figures are metal, and while not as detailed as the prisoners themselves, they fit in really well and look really good.

As part of the expansion, you get a German army Military Policeman riding a BMW motorcycle. This figure and the bike site on a much larger base than the regular figures and makes a nice looking mini-diorama all on its own. 

Anywho, hope you enjoy the pics.

Group shot of the aircrew prisoners. Some great inspiration from the Great Escape movie and the figs do a great job of emulating some of the key characters from the movie. The overhead shot was an attempt to showcase the bases as I was particularly proud of how well they turned out.

Back and front shot of each of the characters…the leather jacket for the Cooler King was a lot of fun to paint up as well.

The other 3 characters…again, really great connections with the movie…I really enjoyed the paintwork and ended up mixing a few colours together to get the shade of blue that I was looking for. Really happy with how it turned out.

The civilian dressed escapees…again, my painting was heavily inspired by the movie characters. 

The MP sitting on his motorbike…really happy with the turnout and particularly the MP’s gorget around his neck.

2026's Trek up Mt. Shame

Painted

15mm         59

28mm+       34, +12

Terrain      +38

  

Bought       103

Progress    +28 

Painting Update - Misc + Team Yankee + Stargrave

Hello everyone,

I hope your July has been going well. Trying to capitalize on this months posting momentum, I thought I would post some painting progress. It’s a little bit across a few genres, but has been where my brain has been at over the past month or so. I definitely got some inspiration from getting some games in at Cangames, but also from where Duncan and Mike are focusing their painting at as well.

Trying something different, and because my painting was all over the place, I’ll drop some notes and commentary with the pics themselves this time.

Have a great rest of your month.

I honestly can’t remember when or where I got this pilot from…I want to say I got him as a freebie for a subscription or a miniatures order. I want to say it is either a limited Artizan or Pulp Figures model. It’s great WW1 or inter-wars period model. My main inspiration for this one came from some pics of WW1 and post-war Canadian Arctic pilots…I’m liking how the coat came out, different leather tone than what I normally do.

These Canadian Iltis jeeps were part of my buildup for Cangames as I needed a couple more TOW vehicles for the fun. Great vehicles that painted up really quickly. They’ll do well with any TeamYankee Canadian Airborne Regiment formation that I try running in the future.

Not that long ago, Duncan graciously gave me another 3 GAZ trucks that he had printed up to go along with the other 4 that he has given me. These remain a lot of fun to paint up, and google search gives you so many different options for paint schemes. These will do well in Cold War and Imagi-nations settings.

I broke out another pack of Northstar Figures Stargrave minis…this time it was the Marksmen pack with a humanoid and alien looking sniper dudes. I ended up going with the same scheme that Northstar used for the humanoid…but for the alien…I ended up changing my original colours and going with a light bright-ish green and tan brown complimentary tone. This was a real blast to work out and refine. I’m really happy with how it turned out. I ended up basing the figures like my last Stargrave figs…space station deck with trash and debris,

2026's Trek up Mt. Shame

Painted

15mm         59, +15 (Iltis and Gaz)

28mm+       22, +3 (pilot and marksmen)

Terrain      +38

  

Bought       103

Progress    +16    

Accounting Catch-Up

Howdy folks.

I hope your week is going well comma and that your weather is letting it get outside and enjoy some time outdoors. Having taken stock this week of my Cangames activities and post Cangames reports, I thought it was high time To do some workstation cleanup and figure out where exactly I stood in terms of miniatures painted miniatures bought and overall progress as we’re roughly about half year complete or maybe I should say we’re grudgingly just over the half your mark this week.

To be honest, I have not been taken a very close look at what I was buying, but I know I had picked up a few things this year that I hadn’t encountered for yet. Anywho, I had picked up a few figures this year from local gaming stores and I had started to go down the rabbit hole of sci-fi and space gaming, which led me over to the Aliens franchise and then I got interested in seeing what I could find from the “Another Glorious Day in the Corps” game line from Gale Force 9, it is out of production now, so it’s a little challenging, but I figured that the miniatures would work well across a wide range of genres. 

Anyhow, having taken the time to do the review. My numbers are now up-to-date and I almost have a new challenge to see if I can paint through the small bump or foothill in my trek up shame mountain. We’ll see what the rest of the year brings and how much I can get through this collection on top of the objectives I had set in January.

I think this picture captures most of it, but I know I’m missing a bolt action book that I bought that came with a free figure a couple of Star Wars legions boxes (Bossk and the battlefield supplies scatter terrain), Oh, and a couple of used Marvel figures that I bought at Red Dragon (Captain America and Kraven).

Have a great weekend folks.

2026's Trek up Mt. Shame

Painted

15mm         44

28mm+       19

Terrain      +38

  

Bought       103, +103

Progress      -2

Painting Update - Stargrave

Hello everyone,

Here's hoping that you are having an excellent summer. On the heels of my Cangames posts, and actually on the heels of my attempt at Stargrave, I ended up putting some paint to a few figures that I had acquired a few years back. Coincidentally, I also happened to see a few posts from other Blogger on the game Scrapjacks and immediately became interested in that as well and thought, hey these figures should work for either one or the other game.

Starting with the Tekkers blister pack from NorthStar Minis, I also threw in a scatter terrain Starship Terminal from Reaper as well to get the sci-fi painting juices flowing. I enjoyed the different version of the tekker, and have to say that the full suited version screams old-school sci-fi and Scrapjacks. Whereas the helmetless tekker was a bit of a challenge on deciding how to paint up. In the end, I went with some Blade Runner 2049 inspiration (Dave Bautista’s Sapper character) and went with an orangey-brown color scheme. 

For the bases for both, I painted up ala starship, space station, along with some debris and trash kicking around. The starship terminal was fairly straightforward...and just tried some muted colours that would flow nicely.

Hope you enjoy the pics.

2026's Trek up Mt. Shame

Painted

15mm         44

28mm+       19, +3

Terrain      +38

  

Bought        0

Progress   +101