June Recap

I can't believe June is over.  My daughter starts back to school August 2nd.  Wow.  And even though I am probably not going, the NOVA Open is just 2 months away.

Anyway, we had a bit of a hiccup at home this month that seriously derailed all of my hobby activity until it was resolved.  My cat Cleo got very very sick and stopped eating.  Or stopped eating and got very very sick.  It took quite awhile and effort to get her properly sorted out but it looks like everything is going to be ok.  She has another week or two though of recovery and then we will have to see about having a bunch of teeth pulled, which could set us back on the cycle of not eating again.  But I think it is going to be ok.  And you are probably already tired of reading about that.

Moving on, I did manage to get a 4 player game of Frostgrave in.  It was a good time and I particularly like games that can be played multi-player like that - although I do not think from a time required perspective Frostgrave is "tuned" for multi-player.  Sadly, that was about it for June for games played.  Like I said the cat thing seriously derailed a lot.  I do have a game(s) of Guild Ball arranged for the 4th of July weekend, which will have occurred by the time I post this.  The regular monthly Sunday game thing at Rocket Republic is going to move to a twice a month frequency, just not sure if the local miniature gamers are going to utilize that since a semi-regular Wed night game seems to be forming.

I did get some hobby time in though!  I assembled 2 "Archers" from the Robotech tactics set and 2 "Warhammers."  And now working on 2 "Rifleman."  OMG, these miniatures are as bad as everyone says.  So many pieces.  Who the hell decides to make the equivalent of a scale model kit of a figure that is only 2 inches tall!  Seriously, the Archers were about 24+ pieces each.  See below for the "Rifleman" sprue (the legs already cut out).  That is for 2 of them.

And then on top of that, I amazed that for injection molding plastic, that the tolerances are not better.  Seams and gaps are apparent all over the assembled model and believe me after assembling 24+ pieces, I'm not going to sit there and fix the seems and gaps.  Ugh.  Still though, once completed (even with their flaws) having some of the Battletech "unseens" makes me happy.

In happier news, I did work a lot on my Guild Ball models.  And by work on, I mean actual painting!  OMG, he paints!?  Yes, occasionally.  There will eventually be a post that more closely documents (for my reference at least) what I did and roughly how I did it but in the meantime here is an in progress shot of 4 of the male Mason players I'm working on:

Just most of the base coats blocked in at this stage.

Given that it has actually been over a year since I painted, I have been pretty shocked on how it has gone.  I expected to have had a lot of muscle memory/control loss but it hasn't really been that bad.  They aren't great and they never will be but I think I will be pretty happy with them as a tabletop quality.  And they look better than bare metal.  

After I get those 4 guys done, I'm going to take a short detour and knock out a paint job on my wizard and apprentice for Frostgrave.  They were the only 2 models I had unpainted for my warband, so I'm feeling like I should do something quickly to fix that.  We also have a family beach trip in July that isn't going to let me get any painting done.  That being said, I generally manage to bring a toolbox and get a few hours of assemble done - so I will have to figure out what/who that will be.

Anyway, wish I had more to report on for June but that was pretty much it.