A Reflection on 2023

Welcome back to Chris' Miniature Woes! It's been quite a journey, and I appreciate your patience as I navigate through the challenges that 2023 brought into my wargaming and roleplaying world. Last year was a bit of a rollercoaster of health issues and a subsequent focus on my career, leaving my beloved miniatures gathering dust and the gaming table silent. Today, I want to share with you what happened, how it impacted my hobby, and the exciting plans on the horizon for 2024.

Health Struggles:

Last year marked a challenging period in terms of health. My GP switched my medication for chronic pain, I moved onto new antidepressants, and I also had access to legal medical cannabis for the first time, which altogether brought both physical and mental adjustments. A hernia operation in the summer added to the mix, demanding my attention and time to heal. The confluence of these factors affected not only my personal life but also spilled into my professional sphere.

Career Focus:

In response to the health challenges, I made the decision to channel my energy into my career. This shift required a significant portion of my time and dedication, but I am pleased to share that the effort has paid off. I'm now in a more stable position at work, providing a solid foundation to refocus on my personal life and hobbies.

Home Renovations:

Despite initial plans, home renovations were put on pause in 2023 due to health issues, work commitments, and financial constraints. However, I'm excited to share that it will be a major focus in 2024. The pending changes, especially in the dining room (until this point the area has mainly been a temporary dumping ground for boxes and furniture from our house move), will finally create a space where we can entertain with friends, which will include board gaming, wargames and roleplaying games!

Returning to the Hobby

With my health stabilising, career on track, and a renewed focus on long-awaited home renovations, I'm excited to announce the return of Chris' Miniature Woes! I acknowledge that 2023 was a year of minimal output, but I'm committed to reviving the blog with a semi-regular posting schedule to begin with. Starting with two posts a month, expect updates every other Wednesday, where I'll share insights into ongoing projects, new releases, and the latest from my miniature-filled world.

Upcoming Post Preview:

Look out for my next post, "2024 - A New Year - Motivation, Projects, Aims & Goals," where I'll delve into the specific projects lined up for the year. I recently acquired a resin 3D printer and a wash and cure machine, unlocking new possibilities for miniatures and terrain creation. Among these projects is a Cyberpunk 2077-themed skirmish game that has been brewing in my mind for quite some time. Stay tuned for more details and updates!

Conclusion:

Thank you for sticking with me through the ups and downs of 2023. Your support means the world, and I can't wait to embark on this exciting journey with you in 2024. Let's roll the dice, paint some miniatures, and create unforgettable gaming moments together! Thanks to my wargaming friends online, who have kept my inspiration burning! A special shout-out to Lewis, a consistent blogger and one of my best friends - it's mad that after so many years of friendship (as well as living in the same country, and only a couple of hours away!) that we've yet to meet up for a game! Perhaps 2024 is the year? Let's make it happen!

Hobby Block - To Be Continued

I’ve been in a funny old mood recently and I’m finding that it really takes a lot for me to get around to painting anything - I can think of about half a dozen different reasons for this, so it’s not too worrying or anything, but I must start to take steps to rectify it and find my love for painting little figures again soon!

I’m going to continue with these ponderings in a future post, but in the meantime here’s my most recent projects, including one I’m working on for the “rescue” challenge set by my mate Lewis (his blog will be in the side bar and I’ll link this later!). The idea is simple, find a mini that needs rescuing - strip the paint, rebuild it, hit it with the hairy brush and pigment! I started off overly ambitious, with the thought of doing the batch of minis I’ve most recently stripped - a little group of Mordian Iron Guard which will round out my collection to approximately a command squad and infantry squad. I’d suggested that I could potentially get them all done in the month, but then things got in the way:

1. I can’t find the 12 other Mordians I have.
2. I can’t find the Epic-scale Land Raiders I’d planned on using as the basis for a tracked support weapon for the Lascannon for the Command Squad (one of the ones from Lewis is the Lascannon operator, who had a separate Lascannon on wheels like a field gun, with his little button to fire the pewpew.
3. Work has been busy (and I’ve been getting some other cool real-life stuff sorted out too!)

So, what to do? Mere days before the deadline!

There were a few other Necromunda minis that Lewis sent along too, donated by our friend Fraser. One of them got a mild conversion in order to join my Necromunda Slave Guilders - a bunch of gladiator-types and slave catchers (just the worst bunch of ingrates you’ve ever seen!). I dremeled away some of the old Goliath badges (which looked a bit Orky!) and severed his head - I repositioned this into a slightly more sensible pose (for a man with a chainsaw-mohawk…) and did some patching up with putty. I then decided that as he wasn’t really leader material (in my eyes) and he’d most likely just be a champion or what have you, I removed the barrel of the melta gun and replaced it with one from the Orlock upgrade sprue that matched in with some careful carving!

I started the rest of my gang with a metallic undercoat, so I went the same route with this guy - he’s now looked like this for a week, will I make the end-of-month deadline? Hell yeah!

Other stuff:

Megadroth Skeleton - a great kit from GW, I’ve always been a fan of the “omg that’s a huge skeleton!” terrain that we’ve seen in the 40K terrain collection (thinking of Space Wolves 3rd edition Codex, with terrain of some big Fenrisian beast’s skeletal remains!) and it’s nice to be able to buy one! Really nicely designed set without a lot of extra embellishment. I did do some slight changes though - I clipped away or dremeled off all the skulls and bones on the bases. 

- I filled any leftover holes with old greenstuff.

- Added gravel and sand to the areas that needed it with PVA. 

- When this was almost dry I took some PVA, watered it down and added a splash of washing-up liquid, thinly coated the parts I’d added gravel to. This step was to stop the gravel peeling away (I’ve had this happen on other terrain).

The reason for removing the skulls and bones isn’t because they weren’t nice and thematic, it’s just it would have directly tied it to the 28mm/32mm scale, but I wanted to keep it neutral and thus be able to use it at 6mm/10mm/15mm/28mm etc. (I know it’s themed around being in Ghur in the Mortal Realms, so the extra bones make sense there!).

Finally, I’ve also put together this squad of Necromunda Ironhead Prospector Squats. I’m currently pondering a scheme for them, but I’m thinking black/grey/yellowish-green like the Ryobi power tools. Call them the Riobi Consortium or something? They’ll likely be rather inep

Let me know what you think :) 

Monstrous Ogres On The March

 Well, at least I finished something this month!

Glad to have got them done, and juuust under the deadline!

I’ve recently been diagnosed with a hernia and it’s been giving me some pain - I’m getting it looked at soon, so that will be helpful and will hopefully give me a bit more time to paint!

Monster March - A Tad Delayed

Hello all,

At the prompting of my brother in brushes, Lewis, I decided to join Monster March, a yearly painting challenge from Swordmaster’s blog. I’m delayed in posting this, but I hope that’s okay!

I decided pretty quickly that I’d work on these two undead ogres that have been hanging around the desk for a while! I sometimes take the time to add tufts to my bases before finishing up a paint job, as I like to do this in batches! 

One of the undead ogres is a fan-sculpt that I saw available on Facebook - it’s a great Oldhammer-themed sculpt based on Hrothyogg, the Ogre Champion by Jes Goodwin. There are some lovely details in there!

The bigger lad is from Reaper Bones and is a mountain of plate armour that I’m looking forward to working on! The aesthetic seems very much like Darkest Dungeon, of which I am a huge fan of it’s murky grey Lovecraftian fantasy setting!

If I get these two finished off I’ll work on this Perry Brothers Ogre. Again, this mini is loaded with different metal textures - it’ll be fun to weather!

Finally, if I get all of the above finished off I’ll try and paint this recent acquisition, which was found recently in a charity shop for 50p! I started cleaning up some of the moldlines - the original paint job really is a cut above some of the other pre-painted figures I’ve re-based and re-purposed previously. He