Monthly Archives: June 2009

Textured Plasticard Bases

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The only real holdup in starting off my Daemon army is the decision about how to base them.
My Dark Angels are based with ballast drybrushed to look like ash. It looks good, but I’d like to try something different.
I want my Daemons to have interesting bases, but don’t want to spend too much time on them. I’d thought about basing them with resin bases, but those are kind of a pain to work with: pinning and gluing and such. I want texture, but want it in plastic; plastic glue is more than enough to keep minis on the base.
So, my solution: glue textured plasticcard to the bases; I can use plastic glue to hold the plasticard on the base and the miniatures on the plasticard.
I settled on a kind of cobblestone pattern: the bases are going to have the brass flagstones of Khorne’s palace.
I smear some plastic glue on the bases and stick them on the back of the plasticard. At first, I crammed them in, close together, to maximize the number of bases I could fit on each sheet. In retrospect, this was not the best plan. It’s kind of a pain to cut between the bases. From now on, I’m placing them a little farther apart.


Scoring the plasticard slightly is all it takes, then it’s simple to tear the plasticard along the score. Rough shapes are fine. Once the base is separated, work around the edge of the base with hobby clippers. Lots and lots of small and near cuts render a very round shape.
That’s all there is to it!

Painting Progress – 20090615

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I’ve assembled so many minis over the past two weeks, I’ve honestly lost track of what I’ve done. I’ve picked up a few things, which hasn’t helped. At this point (now that my Corsair Arbalesters have come in), all I’ve got left are 12x Corsair Arbalesters and 16x Corsairs. That’s it!

Painting’s been slow going, however. I’ve made slow progress on a company of Haradrim, mostly a combination of life keeping me busy and it just being harder to paint 8 guys instead of 4.
On the bright side, I did paint up a mini for my D&D character (though for a game that’s ending in 0-2 sessions): Vladimir Thunderjunk, Dwarven Fighter.

I’m very happy with the tone of the armor, which was a mix of Chainmail, Black and P3 Coal Black. It’s got a nice, dark green/blue color to it. The base is a little uninspired, but it’ll do. There’s a magnet beneath the thin, flat rock in front of him: not sure if I’ll ever want or need to magnetize a status marker or anything, but I figure it can’t hurt to plan ahead.

Painting Progress – 20090601

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No pics this week, as I’ve painted next to nothing. I’ve made a great deal of progress on five Corsairs of Umbar (well, 4 Corsairs and a Corsair Captain), but that’s it, and they’re not quite done.

I have assembled a number of minis, though. I finished off assembling my second box of Corsairs (one more box to go), Gothmog (with the tiniest bit of conversion: a turban),four half-trolls, twelve Wargs and a Mumak.

The Wargs were something I agonized over.

Since I’ll be pulling them into my list anyway, I needed to compare the Mordor Warg Riders to the Misty Mountains Wargs (Isengard Warg Riders didn’t need a look, since they’re the same as Mordor Warg Riders… but they’re Rare). The Warg Riders are unquestionably better than the riderless Wargs: they’ve got 4-5 more unit options, come with Skilled Riders and throwing weapons, and can be upgraded to have shields or bows… but I’m working with a theme, here! The Wargs are perfectly hyena-ish, which is why I looked at them in the first place… but those goblins don’t fit at all, and on closer inspection looked pretty resistant to minor conversion to bring them in line.

Ultimately, I decided against the riders. I’m leaving them off. In game terms, I’m losing out on 2 attacks (throwing weapons) per company and a bunch of command options I’m extremely unlikely to take… but the army will look that much nicer and more cohesive as a result. Besides, given that we’ve got people using WHFB elves and dwarves in the league, I don’t mind just saying, “These are counts-as Warg Riders, not just Wargs. Their angry barks are their throwing weapons.” Or something.

The Mumak is pretty crazy. It went together relatively easy, but there were a number of gaps and uneven spots that needed green stuff to make things work. For a $65 ($75 as of today) model, this is a little disappointing. Also, the howdah was a huge pain to put together.

I was surprised to find that the Mumak is, ah, anatomically correct. It’s a little disconcerting. It’s also the size of a person. Madness.

At this point, all I’ve got left to assemble for War of the Ring are:

  • 16 Corsairs
  • 1 Giant Scorpion (Shelob)

I’ve also got a heap of Mahud that need attention, but since they appear to be so terrible in the game, I’m likely just going to leave them in the blister until I figure out what to do with them. The ones I’ve already assembled, I plan to use to leaven out Half-Troll units. It’s a shame, really.

I also need to pick up a second Nazgul at some point extremely soon.