IHMN Venusian Heavy Cavalry/ AoS Troglodon Mash-Up

I use GW skinks for my IHMN Venusian Native Army. These are available second hand for a song and are reasonably priced when new.

The Troglodon is, however, one of those wildly overpriced large-but-simple plastic kits that GW specialise in.

However Carnegie Collection dinosaurs are available prepainted for around a tenner and are gorgeous models. This is their Spinosaurus. All I did was reposition the feet (using boiling water) to tilt the body forward into a more accurate pose - bipedal dinosaurs did not walk upright - add a couple of skinks, and put it on a Venusian base.

I am really pleased with the result and the fact that it only cost me a tenner plus some spares I had sitting in store really appeals to my skinflint soul.

Review: Reaper Filth Beast, aka Beast of Nurgle

This is a Reaper Bones Dark Heaven Filth Beast which I have painted up as a Beast of Nurgle.

It is one of Reaper's polymer models retailing typically in the UK for about £2.75. To give an idea of scale, the model is mounted on a 50mm base.

Reaper Bones miniatures are made of a soft, light polymer but unlike polyethylene it is not greasy so it sticks easily with superglue and does not resist paint. The material is very robust but not easy to cut or shape. However the molding is excellent with no obvious  lines.

I vastly prefer this mini to the official GW model, which is currently unavailable and I doubt if it will sell for £2.75!
I love the disease/reproduction pods along the side.

It comes without a base: I modelled this one with milliput and GW slime paint or Nurgle's Rot, as they name it.

Highly recommended

Review Age of Sigmar: Skull Keep - A Curate's Egg

Chaos Dreadhold: Skull Keep is a Games Workshop plastic kit retailing for £45.

First Impressions: when you open the box are of a typical Games Workshop terrain piece made of chunky bits of plastic.

Manufacturing Quality: Pretty crummy, as I've come to expect from GW Terrain pieces. Nothing fits together properly. If you blow up my photos you will see that the walls almost touch. I deliberately didn't use plastic filler on this build.

Design Quality: Very good, there is nothing quite like this in plastic from any one else. It looks great with lots of nobbly bits. An imaginative piece to act as a great centre piece in a variety of scenarios.

Suitability For Wargaming: Excellent, it is tough, light and has plenty of room to get models on. And it breaks down into halves to put models on the first floor. All this makes it easy to store and transport.

Value For Money: Sigh, about average. £45 is a great deal of moolah for a cheaply produced,  simple kit of dubious manufacturing quality, even if it is nicely designed and well thought out as a wargame piece.

Recommended?: Hmm, depends. If you really, really fancy it then go ahead but be prepared for a lousy build and a hole in your wallet.

Note: I used the 'Red' (second from left) Humbrol multi spray to get a shimmer effect on the model. It doesn't really show up in still photos but the colour changes depending on the angle at which sunlight reflects off the surface. I assume this is a variant of a 'structural colouration' effect - like a butterfly's wing.

The painting technique is simple: Spray with black primer, coat with black gloss, and then spray on the multi-effect.

Battlefront at Rochester

Battlefront Games are best known for their hugely successful WWII game, Flames of War, but they have recently produced two other armour war games that show every sign of emulating the popularity of their illustrious predecessor.

The first is Team Yankee, as shown above, a Cold War battlegame.

And the second is Tanks, a skirmish level WWII tank battles game.

Both of the new games are simpler than the original FoW, in line with the modern trend towards streamlined wargames that can be played to completion in a couple of hours.

 Matt Sulley, Customer Service Manager at Battlefront UK, braved the arctic conditions to spend the day as Guest of Honour at a special open day at Rochester Games dedicated to all three products. He was surrounded by fans all day. Matt, second from right, is here seen discussing some of the latest Team Yankee models .

Rochester Games is becoming well known for putting on these 'specials', dedicated to a game or company and they attract a great deal of interest.

Turnout was rewardingly high, once again.

Magic

I've been shooting some photos for friends, and I couldn't resist playing around with Paint Shop Pro.

The models are Arcworlde and Pegasus.