Category: Wargaming

This weekend, amid lots of other activities, including a Zoom-based Feudal Patrol(TM) game testing Greg’s upcoming Viking supplement, I managed to complete this unit of mechanic tin men as well as nearly finish the Scarecrows and a few other figures (for a future post).

These are a pretty fast paint. I primed them black, dry brushed them with gunmetal, dry brushed them a gain more lightly with silver, and then added some Vellejo rust.

As this figure was being developed, I asked Russ to make sure he was holding an oil can.

This weekend, amid Christmas decorating, I completed my last unit of Gillikin infantry and a unit of lesser apes.

We normally decorate on Black Friday, but we spent Thanksgiving with my son at Ft. Rucker this year. So, we decorated the following weekend — without the added hands of two kids. This was made a little more difficult because we are in a new house and didn’t have habitual locations of our various decorations. But, I usually wake up very, very early, and so I managed to finish two units I had started last week along with some additional Gillikin leader figures.

Next up in the painting queue are Fearsome Scarecrows and Professor NitPick and his mechanical tin men.

Well, I completed resin printing my 20th goblin last night and so have a whole unit to paint for Wars of Orcs and Dwarves (WOOD).  It seems easier to print in resin than in PLA, but the cleanup is a bit painful.  Probably the best thing to do is never clean up; keep the printer running 24/7.  With a fan and an open window (easier to do in FL), the fumes are manageable.  I am going to set up a bench in the garage, however, for future prints, because I am not 100% about the fumes.  I ordered some additional supplies from Amazon, including several bottles of IPA, which is hard to come by in stores around here due to the plague panic, surgical gloves, some lunch trays to contain any spills, and some extra reservoirs.

Chris or Greg sent me the link to a Kickstarter making 28mm Napoleonic figures, but they were post-1812, and my preferred periods are pre-1812, 1805-1809.  I think that more and more people are going to start selling stl files for figures as the price of resin printers has come way down.

The reviews on the Elegoo Mars 2 Pro were solid, so I took the plunge.  The Photon is supposedly a little more flexible, but the Elegoo reviews said it was the easiest and simplest to use.  I don’t like fighting through IT issues (like updating an SSL certificate yesterday on my blog), so I went with simple.  The Internet is famous for people who don’t do anything or have any credibility criticizing people who do*, so some of the negative reviews need to be taken with a grain of salt. For instance, it said the port for the USB stick was hard to get to. Note in the picture above, it is right in front and easily accessed. Another complaint was that it was difficult to remove the UV lid. I didn’t find that to be the case at all. Yes, it has to be lifted completely off the device, but I just didn’t see that as a big deal. The ChiTu Box slicer is a little non-intuitive, but once you get the hang of it, even that was straight forward, and ChiTu Box seems to be an industry-standard, free slicer — for resin printers at least. So far, I have been really happy with the printer and the results. Recommended.

I used Chris Abbey’s (Sally 4th) workflow:

• Import the stl files into Prussa slicer.
• Use Prussa’s auto orientation feature and add the supports.
• Export the file with supports to a new stl file.
• Load those STL files into the ChiTu Box slicer to fill the bed with figures.  (It takes the same amount of time to print one figure or a bed full of figures, so you might as well fill the bed.
• Export that into the proprietary ChiTu Box format.
• Load that file onto the USB stick that comes with the printer.
• Print the figures.
• Pry everything off the print bed.
• Wash the figures in two tubs of IPA, one “dirty” (the first wash) and one “clean” (the second wash).
• Rinse in warm water.  
• Finish curing the figures in UV light (plenty of that on the back patio in FL.
• Assemble.
• Paint.
• Ogle.

I am very happy with the results and quality of the figures.  I still prefer metal figures, but these are nice, especially for the price (something like $0.30 a figure).  They have the feel of Bones II material.  I haven’t tried to paint any yet, so I don’t know how they take primer.  The only primer I found that works on Bones II is the Army Painter primer and/or matte spray. Everything else seems to make the perpetually sticky.

Anyway, if you have been thinking about a resin printer, for about $250 on Amazon plus another $50 of additional supplies, you can be up and running.  (I normally order my electronics from New Egg, but they were about $40 more than Amazon in this case, which is unusual.) That’s about what my Prussa Mini cost me.

I still prefer metal figures, but for those odd or rare items that aren’t worth a manufacturer creating a mold, you can’t beat the price of resin printed figures (about $0.30) per figure. Once you amortize the cost of the printer, this is still economical. I see resin figures as a supplement to metal figures, not a replacement.

I still have a large block of Wars of Ozz figures to paint before I paint the goblins, so don’t look for painted pictures anytime soon. These will get the Contrast paint treatment, but I will also experiment with the Instar Alpha contrast style paints that I got from Sally 4th.

My next project will be to reprint a vehicle that I printed with PLA and compare them.

*Man in Arena by Teddy Roosevelt: “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” I firmly believe in this quote and what it says. This is why I have no patience anymore for people who have never done anything FOR their country except to benefit from its freedoms and institutions incessantly criticizing it or tearing down its foundations and institutions.

*As Dolly Parton said, “I wish all the people telling me that something can’t be done would get out of the way of the people who are doing it.”

Despite the Thanksgiving holiday (which felt a little like the party at Twelve Oaks in Gone with the Wind), I managed to finish three regiments of Gillikin cavalry I had begun last week. At Greg’s suggestion, I painted one in black tunics as the non-canonical Death Head regiment.

We are building enough cavalry, that we may be able to play Brandy Station with Ozz figures. The Gillikin cavalry join the Munchkin, Quadling, and Winkie cavalry brigades I have built.

For the past week, I have been working on two more regiments of Winkie cavalry for Wars of Ozz. I had one regiment, originally painted by Tom Davis, but I had two more to complete.

One of the things I like about the cavalry in Wars of Ozz is that the lower torsos and legs are attached to the mounts, but the upper torsos are separate pieces. This makes it really easy to paint the lower portions of the figures without weapons, arms, and other things getting in the way. In the picture (above) you can see that I completed the lower portions of the Winkie cavalry.

In addition to the Winkie cavalry, I also painted a regiment of skeletons.

The skeletons come with a variety of weapons. I wanted them to have a little more color. I had some leftover shields from some plastic Vikings, so I added them to some of the skeletons. I think this gives them more visual interest. By not giving every skeleton a shield, I think it helps give the regiment a more irregular look as well.

The ancient texts provide reference to Po-Land which was a traditional invasion route of larger nations. Like the land of the Po’s, The Land of Harvest has been the traditional invasion route used by the Winkies and Gillikins to attack Munchkinland. To help the Harvesters, Glenda animated King Jack to lead them. King Jack is tired of being an invasion route and providing mercenaries to other armies. He has been working to grow the Land of Harvest into a first-rate power.

To that end, Jack has begun to model is forces on the Munchkins, raising several batteries of artillery and even sending some of his artillerists to the Munchkin artillery school for training.

Yesterday I finished another regiment of Lesser Pumpkin Heads. That gives the Land of Harvest two regiments of Lesser Pumpkin Heads, a regiment of Greater Pumpkin Heads, two batteries of artillery, and King Jack. There are some more packs coming from Old Glory to further grow the Land of Harvest.

Chris Abbey at Sally 4th asked me to take a few photographs of units that he doesn’t have painted yet. These may or may not end up in the final Rules of Ozz rulebook. Enjoy.

Yesterday I took a half-day off work and knocked out these folks. I now have one Northern Province regiment, one Central Province, and two Southern Province regiments — a formidable infantry brigade.

While not the finest cavalry in Ozz, Munchkin heavy cavalry are competent. Due to the size and stature of their ponies, only the smallest Munchkins can join the cavalry. This reduces their shock effect on the battlefield.

I just completed a unit of Munchkin heavy cavalry, completing my Munchkin cavalry brigade.

These fellows are eagerly awaiting the day when their players are released from house arrest due to the plague panic, and they can take to the field.

This weekend I managed to pick up a paintbrush in addition to a Saturday morning, tans-Atlantic, Zoom-enabled playtest of Wars of Orcs and Dwarves. Some of what I finished I had started last week, but I finished them today.

The first unit I completed was a regiment of Quadling heavy cavalry. These have much the same uniform as the Quadling lancers, but their tunics are blue instead of orange.

I don’t know if they will ever appear this way on the table during a game, but it looks fun to see a whole “brigade” of Quadling cavalry.

The second unit I completed was regiment of Greater Pumpkin Heads. I am really happy with how they turned out, including the candy corn teeth.

Due to the size of these figures, they are actually difficult to fit onto the standard 2″ x 2″ bases. I kept the arms separate as I painted the figures, but when I get to assemble the, I realized that I really should have completely assembled that at the beginning. I could then have turned the figures a few degrees to allow the bases to align properly.

The pumpkin patch pieces are not released yet. When a few new packs are announced that make enable the creation of the Lands of Harvest as a fully-fledged faction in Ozz, one of the packs will include the pumpkin patch. Rumor has it that King Jack has the ability to create units of Lesser Pumpkin heads while sitting in a pumpkin patch. Could those rumors be true?