Hobby Round-up of 2021 – An eclectic mix

On 30/12/202130/12/2021 By The OneIn 15mm, 2mm, 6mm, Charity Project, Doctor Who, Finnish Winter, Continuation and Lapland Wars, Games played, Great Northern War, Holstein 1700, Ice Hockey, Judge Dredd Miniatures Game, podcast, Scanian War, Shows, Silver Bayonet Scania 1677, Stargrave, Sweden WW2, Terrain, WW25 Comments

A few days before Christmas I was invited to speak on Sean Clark’s podcast Gods Own Scale, where I covered some thoughts and reflections from the year that just passed (link below the picture, if you want to check it out).

https://godsownscale6mm.podbean.com/e/episode-40-the-one-with-per-broden-again/

It is always great to catch-up with Sean and it is well worth checking up his back catalogue if you are not already familiar with it.

Anyway as a kind of complement I will do a quick overview of some of the things I did on the hobby front this year (mainly an organised listing of links to blogposts). As always in doing the review I realise that I have been doing far more than expected.

The sections are

More 3D printing
Commissioning some 6mm miniatures
Sweden 1943 Project 15mm
6mm Projects
The Battle of Lund 1676 6mm and the 6mm Charity Project
Terrain Projects
Fantasy Ice Hockey 28mm
Other Projects
An Awarding Year – Caesar Award (Wargaming Blog 2021) and Best in Show at Salute (6mm Poltava 1709

More 3D printing

I continued some exploration of 3D printing and came to the conclusion after a lot of printing that I should stop just printing and just keep things back until I intended to paint stuff, avoiding creating yet another mountain – this time in resin instead of lead. On the whole I really enjoy using the printer and the result it produced – it has not really reduced the amount of stuff I buy but has given me some options for doing alternative stuff. Here are few of the stuff I did do.

I printed a few ships and Max and I had a blast playing a few naval engagement with them.

I also got a battle mat from Geek Villain for naval engagement (or wide rivers).

Some really nice details in these 1/2400 scale ships

I also printed up a company of “Sturmis”, the Stug used by the Finns in WW2

More details on this here

Got a 3D Printer – made some ships and tanks

Commissioning some 6mm miniatures

I also commissioned some 6mm miniatures to be used as commanders for my GNW 6mm stuff. I did 5 minutures in total, the one below shows Stenbeck at Helsingborg in 1710.

More about that here and the other miniatures that I commissioned.

Some Command Bases for my 6mm GNW stuff

Sweden 1943 Project 15mm

Further Progress was made on my Swedish 1943 Project and I added some more tanks and armoured cars (well trucks). I also did a high level army list for O Group, the new game from Too Fat Lardies.

More about this project here

Swedish Infantry Battalion for O Group (1943M Organisation) – Part 1

Davidsson and Goliath – Dalarna 1943

Progress on the Sweden 1943 Project and a new Wargames Podcast

6mm Projects

The only big 6mm project I did start in the year was the Forces in Holstein 1700 as part of the start of the Great Northern War. This offers two very colourful opposing armies and the potential for a very interesting wargaming experience – in reality there were no big field battles, but this project offers some exploration of this.

I also bought some already painted 6mm ancients that I rebased and quickly got my 6mm Ancient Punic War collection substantially increased. I also did a summary blog on a lot of the #6mmtips I have shared on twitter over the last few years. More on these projects below.

The International Force in Holstein 1700 – Part 3 More Danish Cavalry

The International Force in Holstein 1700 – Part 2 The Danes

The International Force in Holstein 1700, a new 6mm GNW project

Rebasing an 6mm Army and another Nightmarish model from Fenris Games

Some Random 6mm Advice – Part 1

The Battle of Lund 1676 6mm and the 6mm Charity Project

This year I took the Battle of Lund 1676 to the Virtual Joy of Six event, I ended up doing a video to present the game and also talked about the Charity Project that was completed last year. There are some links to two video that was produced to support these projects.

Joy of Six 2021 – Roll a One Links to Youtube

Lund 1676 and the Charity Project at Virtual Joy of Six 2021 on 4th July

Lund 1676 – Ordre de Bataille (OdB) and Ratings for Twilight of the Sun King (WIP) at Virtual Joy of Six 2021

Terrain Projects

I did a lot of terrain projects this year most notably I did a lot of clutter, or immersion markers as I prefer to call them, for the 1943 table, but there are some generic ideas you could use for other theatres and scales. I also did a fair few buildings and fields.

These projects has allowed me to create some really immersive battlefields, like this one. Here a little video that Des Darkin did showing off the table laid out using many of the terrain elements produced this year (thanks Des).

A bit of Swedish CoC this afternoon. @Roll_a_one inspirational table.#chainofcommand #spreadthelard #toofatlardies pic.twitter.com/Hfy5XCKwfo
— Des Darkin (@DarkinDes) December 4, 2021

Re-Clutter your Life (#Terraintober Immersion marker Project) Part 31 – Summary of it all.

More 15mm houses for the Swedish 1943 Project and some easy DIY tiling for your models – Part 1

£3 Door Mat or a Field for your Wargame

Further Explorations with the £3 Doormat -Yellow Fields

Fantasy Ice Hockey 28mm

I did some further work on my Fantasy Ice hockey project and we are developing some alternative rules to use. More on some conversions and some 3d printed models below.

Fantasy Ice hockey – The Lizards of the Coast

Fantasy Ice Hockey – Converting some Blood Bowl Miniatures to skaters

Fantasy Ice Hockey – Getting a Skeleton Crew

Other projects

Those were my main activities for the year, here some of the smaller projects that was done

The Silver Bayonet (or Spurs) in Scania 1677

Would you like a jelly baby? – Doctor Who Miniatures Game Plans

Gloranthan Trolls and Trollkin in 6mm (Saga age of Magic)

Planet Pot soldiers and 6mm Gloranthan Saga Magic Project Starting

Revolution on Planet Pot – first thoughts on a Stargrave / 5 parsecs Campaign

Judge Dredd Miniatures Stuff (Warlord Games) project – some pictures

The 6mm Charity Project and Spawn of Speed’s Tour Bus – The Slaying Hawk – Part 1

Some more Sci-fi and Mutant 1984 stuff

Our first outing of Stargrave

Neo Men for Mutant 1984, or an excuse to get some Ork (Cow)boys on the table

Virtual Grogmeet 2021 – Mission in Mos Mosel

An Awarding Year

I received two awards this year, the Caesar Award for the Blog of 2021 organised by Little Wars TV and also the Best Game in Show (Presidents Award) at Salute for the 6mm Poltava 1709 table.

Here a video made by Alex at Storm of Steel covering the show with an interview with Nick and I discussing the battle.

A Triumphant Salute – Battle of Poltava 1709

Caesar Awards 2021 – Rolled a Six

And of course the sad news about Mike Hobbs passing earlier in the year, miss you mate!

The Brilliant Mike Hobbs

Planet Pot soldiers and 6mm Gloranthan Saga Magic Project Starting

On 30/08/202130/08/2021 By The OneIn 6mm, Saga, Sci-Fi, Stargrave14 Comments

Bank holiday here in the UK coming to an end, hobby is slow at the moment due to work but a few fun things recently.

Planet Pot Troopers
Saga Magic – a 6mm Fantasy / Glorantha Project

Pot Troopers

Il Douchebag and his Security Forces and special advisors

Last blog post I presented the bad guys – the Il Douchebag and his gang and that I would get some additional soldiers as support (more here). So do do the Pot Troopers I have ordered a few Sprues of these from Wargames Atlantic (I only order two sprues on ebay to see if I like them in the “flesh” – I might buy more but that is enough for now.

I gave them a simple paintjob just like the rest of Il Douchebag’s soldiers (Dark Green with black more or less). But I really like the result and they fit in really nicely.

One of them equipped with a flamethrowers, the others with Automatic Shock Rifles

Mixing really well with the other stuff.

So these are for our Sci-Fi campaign and will be used for a game of Stargrave next week.

6mm Glorantha for Saga Age of Magic

You might recall I did a project for Saga in 6mm a few years ago (more here) and I bought Saga age of Magic some time ago but I am yet to try it out. Anyway I bought a bundle of Gloranthan Morokanth (the kind of Tapir like race of nomads that herd humans). Here is a picture of them from the latest Glorantha Beastiary.

Paul at Papier told me some time ago that he were doing some Moronkanth in 6mm (he already did Bison Riders and Scorpion men, more here) and I got myself a fair few of these, there are plenty of different packs from herders with human, man-drawn chariots, sword/club/spear armed with and without armour and a command set.

I intend to base them like I did my Dark Ages armies for Saga (example below) but have not yet done so, on 25mm square bases each representing a base in the normal game, i.e. a Levy is 12 bases with either 4 foot/2 mounted 6mm miniatures, a warrior is 8 bases with 8 foot/3 mounted 6mm miniatures and hearthguard 4 bases of 9 foot/4 mounted, with the warlord being 1 base with 10 foot/5 mounted.

Anyway so far I am in the middle of the painting and finished the first batch today.

I just wanted to show how nice the sculpts are – remember that they are very small.

Also Paul will shortly release some Gloranthan Trolls in 6mm, I have just put the first coats down on a few of these. They look interesting.

In other news I painted some old Terminators I had to be used the Mutant 1984 madness (they are from the first Space Hulk set). I like the look with the bronze and brass paint job. You do not immediately think Space Marine. They will serve as a kind of Security Bot.

I have also got some new stuff from Alternative Armies (https://www.alternative-armies.com/) and I am yet to paint the batch but here is one I painted this week.

/Hope that was of some interest, more on progress next time

Revolution on Planet Pot – first thoughts on a Stargrave / 5 parsecs Campaign

On 12/08/202114/09/2021 By The OneIn Sci-Fi, Stargrave14 Comments

I really love the old Copplestone Castings, currently sold by Forlorn Hope games, in the UK (link here).

My Star Grave/ 5 parsec heroes Spawn of Speed are from the Rocker range (see more here and here), these are the rebellious heroes of the Space Sagas.

The Little One and I talked about doing a small campaign and I remembered these miniatures from the Fornlorn Hope range.

It contains 4 cops with hats, a female cop (with the standard, no hat/helmet and big hair), a guy with a big gun and a guy looking like Mussolini (Il Duce) doing a gesture measuring something with his hand (or something like this). I thought this was a perfect basis for a small Dictator and his closest guard. I wanted to make them look dark a menancing and went for the Vallejo Black Green (70980) as a base colour with some small highlighting with Vallejo Gunship Green (70895). Most of the other details where painted black then some highlights with very dark grey in two rounds. The advisors had some details in the Green basic to blend in with the “unit”.

So here is the “Captain” – Il Douchebag and his First Mate – Vlasik Beria.

The Supreme Leader’s Guard – Henrietta Herler with 4 troopers

Special Advisors – Mr Andersen, Scarf face and Mr Pee (these are from the Rebel Range).

The setting is the Planet Pot, a mineral rich planet mainly mined for Tin. Il Douchebag has been ruling the planet with an Iron Hand for donkeys years and his regime is oppressive. The Spawn of Speed band has been sent to help the underground resistance movement with information and supplies to start a coup to take over control, so a series of small adventures – a small campaign is being planned.

The kind of scenarios in the “ladder campaign” would be something like this:

First contact – getting onto the planet fight against some security forces and try to escape and find the resistaince.
Stealing some important designs to allow access to the presidential palace
Attack on the presidential palace, a fight against Soldiers to gain access to the palace.
Chasing the Dictator – a “get him before he escapes” kind of scenario

I also want to do some Pot Troopers and have ordered some of these (they are Raumjagers from Wargames Atlantic), I think they will look brilliant in the colour scheme above (i.e. Dark Green and Black, basically painted the jacket and the trousers in green).

/ Hope that was of some interest

The 6mm Charity Project and Spawn of Speed’s Tour Bus – The Slaying Hawk – Part 1

On 09/07/202109/07/2021 By The OneIn Charity Project, Stargrave10 Comments

As I reported in an earlier post the Little One and I wanted to get another Space shuttle for the Stargrave/5 Parsec Stuff (see the earlier post here) so we got the 1/55 scale Moon Bus from the 2001: a Space Odyssey Movie from 1969. It really has a nice retro feel to it.

It is a nice model but I wanted to give it a little bit of character so I did not go for the clean look of the movie (and I doubt I would do it much justice anyway). So I went with a Silver base coat and then a Sepia Wash all over then some weathering with pledge floor polish and ink and some grime wash.

The set comes with some characterless pilots and astronauts that I threw away and replaced them with some of the Stargrave plastic miniatures from NorthStar for Pilots and some Rockers and Punks from Fornlorn Hope Games to represent the Spawn of Speed band. I have already have a set of these as shown in the link here.

I have ordered some LED light as I thought it could be cool and light up the model from the inside and then finally add the windows. I am also going to tried to make some decals for the beer cans.

I really like these kind of diversions going a little bit crazy when you can.

The Charity Project

On another note I think the presentation of the Charity Project last week was a success and we now have kindly been gifted a battle mat by Geek Villian (link here, check out their fantastic range of mats, I have 4 and can more than recommend them) that will be included in the project and I will contact some 6mm terrain producers and ask if they want to help by giving terrain and buildings so the winner of the two armies will get a set of rules, a mat and terrain so they can sit down and start enjoying them from day 1.

Here is a video of the presentation I gave, less my voice over, if you have not seen it and want to know more about this amazing project. 50 painters creating a truly unique set of two fine 6mm armies.

/ Hope that was of some interest

Some more Sci-fi and Mutant 1984 stuff

On 10/06/202110/06/2021 By The OneIn Mutant 1984, Sci-Fi, Stargrave, Terrain11 Comments

Lots of things going on at the moment but getting in the occasional session and have been doing a fair few things recently.

A dropship for the 28mm stuff the Little One and I are doing, and also a really exciting Space Bus on its way.
Some clutter for Urban Sci-Fi gaming
A few more things for the Mutant 1984 project

Dropship

Following from our two games so far with the Stargrave rules (we showed some pictures from one of the games here), the Little One and I felt the need to get some shuttles of dropship without breaking the bank and we found a nice model from Mantic Games (model here) that seemed to fit the bill – it sells for about £25 but we managed to get one for £20 including postage from Ebay, as usually there are some re-sellers that may sell it to you cheaper than buying directly from Mantic.

I spray painted the model with Silver paint and used a series of washes to get a dark green metal with grime look. The funnies part of it was the last step which was done applying some Flory Models Grime Wash (I bought a few of these washes some time ago and I am really happy with the effect after in essence just dabbing it on with a brush (you can get them from here).

Really happy how it came out – quick but effective.

In addition we have order another flyer, a Space Bus from the 2001 movie, in 1/55 scale which hopefully will work (I will report back and let you know). It really works for me.

Clutter for Urban Sci-Fi Gaming

I had some 3D printed terrain I bought from Sabotag3d a year ago for my Judge Dredd project.

Put some paint on it this weekend trying to get a little bit of an overall cartoon feel to it all. All metallics are gold or silver base paint with contrast paint on top – I like the effect it gives.

And of course with a little bit of miniatures and other terrain.

Mutant 1984

Finally I have had some fun painting some miniatures from Fenris Games for my Mutant 1984 project, as per usual the the nobleman Guss af Edelhus in the forbidden zone in Muskö year 105 has an apperance, he is from Warlord Games.

Jageret Svin – bandit and explorer

Wolfram Varg and his fellow Hunters, some of the most sought after troubleshooters in the Pyri-Commonwealth

A Pit Guillotine (well actually a Gug from the Cthulhu Mythons)

/ Hope that was of some interest, have a good weekend (eventually)

Our first outing of Stargrave

On 31/05/202131/05/2021 By The OneIn Stargrave15 Comments

The Little One has been excited about trying out the new Stargrave rules (more here) with the crew he built and painted and yesterday we got an opportunity to have a go. Playing a simple mission of grab objectives and get the hell out of there, using his crew with “Big Man Pete” as Captain and “Hard Man Franky” as First Mate. This is just a few pictures from the game and a few comments, not a review or an actual battle report.

Big Man Pete and His Crew of Riff Raffians (these are made from the Crew and Mercenary Sprues from Northstar’s Spacegrave Range, here)

I did a crew based on the North Star plastics just the Little Ones above, but have to admit that they are not yet completed. Instead I enlisted the Galaxy’s best band “Spawn of Speed” for this mission – they are the meanest sounding band in the Galaxy but are known to take the odd job if they like the Rhythm of it, and there is some cash involved. Especially since the authorities have clamped down of their royalties following a series of aggressive and political songs. Led by the Singer, and “Captain”, Lemmy Araya and supported by the meanest Roadie in the Galaxy known as the Silver Machine (First Mate). They travel the galaxy in their Light Cargo Ship – The Slaying Hawk (named after their first album).

The Spawn of Speed (extra points if you can guess from where I borrowed the background art?, miniatures from the Future Warriors Rockers range here).

The Silver Machine (he is of course Mean Machine from the Warlord set “Dredd: Arch Villains of Mega City 1” , here)

And some hired in soldiers for the mission – a Trooper, 2 Sentries and a Sniper.

This the setup we used – a 2′ by 4′ table. This is using two of the Cyberpunk Battle Systems that is quick to set up and take relatively little space storing (more here).

It creates a nice backdrop and breaks up Line of Sight nicely,

The game itself was fun and led by the Little One, I had only flipped through the rules but he knew them well enough for us to have a good game. I was badly prepared in how my Captain and First Mate powers worked and could have been more clever using those. I had some initial luck in my more aggressive strategy and at one point had 3 of the 5 loot markers but the Little One managed to turn the tides and ended knocking out the whole band and I conceded so I suppose it was a 0-5 loss in the end. We will definitely have a few more games and I encourage anyone to have a go – most of us have some old Sci-fi troopers and characters lying around and what environment you fight in does not really matter as long as there is some terrain features. We might do the next game in a forest or something like that. It has not yet blown or scared me away – so we will see how it feels when I have had a few more games and learned the subtleties of things like powers and the system itself. The Little One is a real fan of the rules. We had a good time which is the first rule or whether a set is fun or not, what follows are a few pictures of the game.