Wrapping up 2013

It's the end of the year. Time to wrap up what I managed to accomplish in 2013 and make some plans for 2014.

I'll need to find time to polish off this monster in 2014 too!

Painting Totals for 2013 

28mm foot: 111, 28mm mounted: 17 which is about half of what I knocked out last year. It was an eventful year with a move to a new house and a new job which didn't leave a lot of time for painting. Hoping to get back to 2012 totals in 2014.

I failed to get up to 6 divisions per side for Hail Caesar, but I did manage to get a pair of basic forces for SAGA completed, and I made a dent on my Reaper Bones. I also managed to resist adding new periods to the lead pile which is good, and with a mountain if lead already on hand I think I'm going to focus on getting it painted up.

Games Played: 6 
One fewer than last year! Again, I spent 5 months in temporary housing with no room for wargaming. That said, we did play quite a bit of King of Tokyo and Pandemic. I'm quite eager to push some lead around in the new year.

Conventions: 1 
Urgh! Scheduling this year really put a crimp in convention attendance (we moved into our new house during Fall In), but I did manage to get a few new friends to join us for Historicon and they're already making plans to attend again this summer. So overall I count that as a win :)

Games to Play in 2014 

SAGA
I finally have enough painted figures to give SAGA a try. It's long been my back burner side project, and I would have preferred to get some dark ages battles before the game line had wrapped up it's entire run. Still, I've heard lots of good things about SAGA, and the demos I've played at cons have been fun, so I'm looking forward to take a deeper dive into the rules.

Fireball Forward
I've really enjoyed every game of Fireball Forward I've played at cons, and my buddy Mike and I are jonesing to get it on the table. My soviets are ready to go, and Mike's Germans are nearly so. We just need to get them finished up and a few of the markers and flags necessary for the game and we can give an infantry game a whirl. I'd like to get some tanks on the table too (something I think Fireball Forward does well), so hoping I can get both some panzers and T-34's put together and painted up quickly too.

Hail Caesar 
We have a good handle on the rules, but Mike and I have been talking about making a few adjustments. I think we're both ready to move beyond straight up slugging matches, but our first attempts at scenarios pulled from the old Tabletop Teasers weren't quite satisfying. We're also thinking of trying a fantasy version of Hail Caesar as well.

Command and Colors: Ancients 
I picked up the board game this summer, hoping to get my ancients fix while in temporary housing awaiting the completion of our home. Only got as far as getting the stickers applied, but I'm hoping to get in a few games, albeit with a full hex marked table and 28mm figures rather than the blocks and board.

Dungeon Delves 
I've got quite a few of the Reaper Bones figures painted (and many, many more to go) plus an unopened box of Dwarven Forge terrain. Looking forward to doing some orc bashing with my son, and I'm pretty sure my regular game group will want a few sessions of dungeoneering as well. Not sure if we'll use Song of Blades and Heroes, an expanded version of
Dungeon Crawl Junior, or good ol' DnD.

Battleship 
I don't mean the one with the white and red pegs. I played a pretty fun WWII naval game at the last Historicon, and I've quite suddenly gotten the urge to do some spaceship gaming too. I like the idea of a simple felt cloth and a handful of vessels duking it out, but I'm not quite sure what period or theme I'd like to tackle yet.

Dungeon Crawl Junior

We're finally getting settled into our new home and with our Christmas shopping and parties wrapped up I managed to get some minis on the table. My son and I have messed about with a variety of D&D type games, but no matter how simple I tried to tweak the rules, they always still felt too complicated. I did some on-the-fly game creation this afternoon that stripped them down to the bare minimum and had two hours of fun with the boy today. He was able to internalize the rules quickly and ran a dungeon crawl for me for over an hour. Details on dungeon crawling for kindergartners after the jump.

Dungeon Crawl Junior

Materials Needed

• Miniatures (good guys and bad guys)
• A board (terrain tiles or dry erase grid map or 3d dungeon terrain)
• polyhedral dice (d4, d6, d8, d20)

Getting Started

1. One player is the GM, everyone else are the adventurers
2. An adventuring player can control more than one miniature. 
3. Each adventurer player should look through the good guy miniatures and pick out some cool figures. There should be at least four good guy miniatures. 
4. Get some paper and write down the stats for each good guy figure.

Statting up the Good Guys

1. Take a look at the figure's armor. If it has armor or a shield, it has Armor 2. If it has armor AND a shield, it is Armor 3. Otherwise it is Armor 1.
2. Assign a class die to the figure. The class die is used for the figure's Hit Points and Attacks. If the figure is a wizard, its class die is a D4. If the figure is knight or barbarian its class die is a D8. Everybody else (clerics, thieves, halflings, etc.) have a D6 class die.
3. Roll hit points. Each figure rolls its class die and records the number as its Hit Points. Reroll 1s.
4. Figures that are spellcasters (wizards, witches, shamans, etc.) pick one spell.

Statting up the Bad Guys

1. Monsters usually have 1 hit point. They have Armor assigned in the same manner as good guys, but they have the option of swapping 1 point of Armor for an extra hit point (for example, an orc with a shield could be considered Armor 1 with 2 Hit Points instead of Armor 2 with 1 Hit Point)
2. Most baddies have a D6 class die. Small or weak creatures are a D4, big ones are a D8.
3. For Junior Dungeon Crawlers, keep the number of bad guys equal to the good guys. If the adventurers know how to use choke points, focus fire and how to protect their weak figures, you can increase the number of monsters. Twice as many baddies as good guys feels about right.

Playing the Game

The good guys explore the dungeon laid out by the GM. If they try to listen at a door, climb a wall, disable a trap, etc. the adventurer can roll the d20 with success on an 11 or higher.

When the good guys encounter some baddies a fight might break out.

Combat

1. Each side rolls a D20 to determine initiative. The higher roll goes first, all of the figures moving and attacking before play passes to the other player. Initiative is rerolled each round. Ties go to the adventurers.
2. Most figures can move 6 squares and attack once. (Small or slow figures like kobolds, golems, etc. only move 4 squares. Fast figures can move 8 squares)
3. When a figure attacks, it rolls its class die. A value higher than the target's Armor deals 1 hit point of damage (monsters usually go down in 1 hit, but adventurers usually have a larger starting hit point total).
4. Monsters reduced to 0 hit points are dead. Adventurers reduced to 0 hit points begin bleeding, losing 1 hit point per round, dying at -10. Did the party get wiped out? Maybe they are captured instead and awaken in the prisons of the dungeon's monsters, or sold back to the local town as hostages.
5. Adventurers with spells can cast their spell once per combat.

After defeating a group of monsters collect XP and treasure. 2d6 gold per group of monsters, x10 if its their lair or a tough battle.

Adventurers can return to town and heal to max or spend gold to buy equipment, extra warriors, healing potions, etc.

Special Rules

• Spears can attack a figure two squares away (even attacking past friendly characters)
• Bows and crossbows suffer a -1 penalty attacking at more than 6 squares.
• Two handed weapons get a +1 attack bonus.
• Wielding two weapons can reroll a miss once per combat.

Some Sample Spells

• Water Wave: Targets a group of bad guys. Roll a d20 for each, knocking any who roll under 10 prone. Prone figures need to spend a whole round getting up. Attacks against prone figures that miss may be rerolled once.
• Magic Missile: Deals 1 point of damage to target figure. Shoot an extra missile at 3rd level and two extra at 5th level.
• Turn Undead: Roll an attack against each undead in the combat. Rolling above their Armor forces the undead to flee. Undead is destroyed if the roll was the die's max.
• Heal: A friendly character gains 3 hit points.

XP and Leveling

Any time the adventurers encounter monsters, give them XP for the encounter (they can't get XP from the same group of monsters if they encounter them a second time after fleeing for example).

Divide XP among the whole group of adventurers. Reaching their level x100 in XP gains them a new level. Roll the class die again and add the value to the adventurer's Hit Point total.

Here are the monster XP values and some notes I used:

Orc: 5xp  (Armor 1. HP 1 or 2. Attack D6)

Skeleton: 5xp (Armor 2 (3 vs. arrows). HP 1. Attack D6.)

Kobold: 3xp (Armor 1. HP 1. Attack D4. Slow-only moves 4 squares)

Rat: 1xp (Armor 1. HP 1. Attack D4-1)

Messing about with dungeon features like traps, teleport circles, funky fountains, etc. should also grant some XP. 5 to 20 seems reasonable. 

And that's it! I don't think there's anything ground breaking here, but these worked quite well for the boy and me for an afternoon of orc bashing fun. 

Thanksgiving, from the Native Perspective

Here's a great article on Smithsonian's site about the colonization of New England by the pilgrims from the American Indian perspective. There's a lot here I hadn't heard before: the system and rules of fealty between the various native villages, the harsh rites of passage to enter adulthood, the natural technology that was superior to the classically "advanced" European homes, and more.

This bit makes me want to paint up some eastern woodland natives for some skirmishes:

Armed conflict was frequent but brief and mild by European standards. The catalyst was usually the desire to avenge an insult or gain status, not conquest. Most battles consisted of lightning guerrilla raids in the forest. Attackers slipped away as soon as retribution had been exacted. Losers quickly conceded their loss of status. Women and children were rarely killed, though they were sometimes abducted and forced to join the victors. Captured men were often tortured. Now and then, as a sign of victory, slain foes were scalped, and in especially large clashes, adversaries might meet in the open, as in European battlefields, though the results, Roger Williams, founder of Rhode Island Colony, noted, were “farre less bloudy, and devouring then the cruell Warres of Europe.”

Great article, lots of power struggles and political machinations by the various Native leaders, and fodder for painting up and playing out some conflicts between the two societies.

Black Friday and Holiday Wargame Specials

I've been scouting a few wargame deals popping up this year for Black Friday, and many appear to be running through Christmas. Have you seen any other great holiday game or hobby specials I missed?

Wargame and Miniatures Sales and Deals

Tabletop World's Christmas deal.
"Yes dear, I bought these for our
'Christmas Village'.  I'll just hold on
to them with my wargame things
for the rest of the year."

• The WarStore is running a 25% off special for a bunch of Flames of War items. Use their 'BlackFriday' coupon for an extra 5% off. Runs through Dec 2.
• Lone Gunman (15, 28mm fantasy and some modern) is offering 25% with code '5years'
• Crossover (28mm super heroes) is offering 15% with code 'blackfriday'
• Legio Heroica (15 and 20mm Ancients, Medieval and Renaissance) is offering 20% orders over 60 Euros, 25% off orders of 120 Euros.
• Victrix is running a great "buy two boxes, get one free" deal now through Jan. 5.
• CP Models has a "buy 5, get 6" deal on all of their figures (20mm WWII, 28mm historical, sci fi and horror, and more) now through Dec 31.
• Tabletop World is offering some awesome free terrain for large orders (starting at 80 Euros). I love the look of their models, and this looks like a great deal if you are looking to invest in some beautiful terrain. Runs through Dec. 31.
• Architects of War 10% to 30% discounts on many, many miniature lines, free minis with larger orders, free shipping (U.S.A.) on orders over $50 plus more specials popping up every few hours. Ends Dec. 1 
• The WarStore is running a 25% off special for a bunch of Flames of War items. Use their 'BlackFriday' coupon for an extra 5% off. 
• Fantasy Flight Holiday Sale  DEEP discounts on Dust, Wings of War ($5 per plane!), board and card games. 
• Clear Horizon Miniatures  Now through Dec 20, three packs of 15mm sci fi troops for $23USD, a 15% savings.
• Two Hour Wargames 20% off until midnight on Nov 29 with code 'bf20'
• Effigy Miniatures 40% off everything until Dec 1 
• Hydra Miniatures retro sci fi sale starting Friday
• Indus Miniatures "War in India" figures, 20% off through Dec 5. with code 'black20'
• Syr Hobbs Wargames Buy four packs, get the 5th free. Plus free fire and smoke counters on order of $50 or more. 
• Ground Zero Games Free minis with each order, plus a discount voucher for the new year! Offer expires Dec. 20th.
• GHQ 20% off orders of $100 or more. Be sure to read the details of implementing the coupon code on their forum. 1 day only! Ends at 12:01 AM on Nov 29.
• Splintered Light (15, 20, 28mm Fantasy) Black Friday only, 20% off with code SLM13
• Miniature Building Authority  10% off everything, plus some deeper discounts. Black Friday only I believe.
• Miniature Market  Over 800 items on sale Black Friday, many at liquidation prices.

Wargame Gift Guide

Need to find a great gift for that special wargamer in your life? There are quite a few boxed sets and games just waiting to be discovered under a tree.

Bolt Action Pegasus Bridge boxed set. Awesome! A laser cut model of the bridge, 30 figures, support weapons, decals, scenario sheet and more. You'll need the Bolt Action core rules to play though.
Fall of the Reich Just released this fall, Plastic Soldier Company's rules for fighting the desperate defense of Germany.
Ronin - Skirmish Wargaming Want a taste of samurai action without committing to painting up armies for a new period? Osprey's 'Ronin' rules along with figures produced by North Star offer an easy way to get the clash of katanas to your tabletop.
Judge Dredd Starter Set. Boxed sets of the miniatures (like the Cursed Earth Desperadoes and Justice Department Judges) have been available for a bit, but Warlord has recently released a boxed set containing 18 figures, starter guide and rules.
The Wargaming Compendium Henry Hyde's Tome. A massive collection of wargaming advice from one of the hobby's experts. I've heard it's great for anyone just entering the hobby, or old hands looking for new tricks. Definitely on my list this year.
Mega Hobby Set (Limited Edition)  OMG look at this thing! Paints and tools are usually a "necessary evil" purchase for me (I'd rather get a pack of figures) but this is downright drool-worthy. Paints, brushes, sprays, tools, glues... so much stuff to replenish the hobby table.
Warriors & Warlords: The Art of Angus McBride Angus McBride is my favorite illustrator of military and fantasy subjects. This volume is a collection and history of his work. I know that I've picked up a number of Ospreys just to get access to his color plates, and paging through a volume dedicated to his artistry seems like a lovely way to spend Christmas morning.
Edge of the Empire RPG Just released this year, I know a number of wargamers were indulging in some roleplaying with Fantasy Flight's new Star Wars RPG. I think this would be a great treat for gamers to share an aspect of their hobby with kids who might have a little more familiarity with the Battle of Hoth rather than Pickett's Charge. They also released the Star Wars: The Card Game which looks similar to the Lord of the Rings card game that we enjoyed in our house.

Reaper Goblins in their Fall Collection

I've spent the last few weeks applying my creative skills to my son's Halloween costume rather than figure painting, but I managed to finally polish off these goblins to join my earlier Halloween Reaper Bones figures.

I had some challenges with this group. The milliput I used to extend the flagstone bases didn't dry properly and needed to be replaced, the reposing using the hot water technique failed to set, and the detail and sculpting on these figs was still pretty shallow. Once I got to painting though, things moved rapidly. I have a ton of greenskin goblins in storage, so I opted for a slightly different color scheme for these guys.

In any case, I was happy to get them finished and they turned out well enough for tabletop skirmishes. And with these figures wrapped up I'll likely be going on a brief painting hiatus. Our new home has finally been completed, we have a settlement date, and I expect to be moving out of our temporary residence within the next few weeks. I'm looking forward to unpacking all of the figures, games and terrain currently in storage and getting back to rolling dice soon!

Flesh and Bones. More Halloween Reaper figures

I dug out a few more horror themed figures from the Reaper Bones pile. First up, a Frankenstein-esque flesh golem, cobbled together from a variety of corpses.

Flesh Golem

"C'mere, give us a hug."

Another extremely bizarre pose, and despite the flexible Bones material, I was unable to contort his arms into anything more fitting. Maybe he should be throwing his arm around his best bro' Sasquatch.

I used three different skin tones: a cold gray, a dark chocolate and a grisly tan to suggest the creature was stitched together from at least three different corpses. Seams received a wash of dark Vallejo Game Color Charred Brown, with brighter red highlights. Stitches got a stripe of black to get them to pop, followed by a highlight of tan.

Arrius, Skeletal Warrior

This undead warrior was part of the Grave Danger set from the original Bones Kickstarter. I wanted to do something a bit different with his armor, so opted for a deep green coupled with a coppery brown for his cloak and trim.

This is a nice figure, a decent pose, and while his armor is a bit extravagant, it isn't covered in skulls or spikes. His cricket bat weapon is a touch odd, but I figure you could remove it and replace it with a sword or something.

More Spooky Reaper Bones: Vampire, Rat Swarm and Bat Swarm

I'm having fun picking out more of the Halloween Bones from last year's Kickstarter. Sticking to the theme is also helping me crank out some of the less interesting sculpts, like these swarms of rats and bats.

The mass of bats had some pretty shallow detail, and a confusing collection of wings, heads and bodies. I used some pretty stark gray drybrushing and a combination of brown paint and inks to pick out the furry bodies, but this still a pretty chaotic mini. If I had to do it again I might go for a pure comic book feel and pick out the bats in bright, blood red to give them a little character.

To match the flagstone bases of the giant rats, I sculpted some dungeon floors out of milliput for these rat swarms. It was fun! I started adding flagstone bases to a few other minis, and even picked up some sculpting tools. Hoping to break out the green stuff and do some more extensive sculpting, as even flagstone bases are tricky for me. Practice makes perfect.

For the vampire, I wanted to keep attention on the actual figure, so eschewed using bright colors on his cloak, saving the deep red for his armor (inspired by the design of Dracula's armor in Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula movie from the 90's). Skin was a simple gray three tone with blue ink wash

I was tempted to add a glass of red liquid in that outstretched hand. "I never drink... wine."

I've been checking out the Bones II Kickstarter currently running, and I'm not quite as hot on it as the original. Reaper seems to be loading it up with miniatures that are pretty similar to the ones from Bones I. I might pick up a few of the individual add on figures, but with a stockpile of Bones figures on hand, I think I may pass on the core set.

How Ghastly! Reaper Bones Rats and Ghast

With all of my terrain building materials in storage, I'll need to postpone my celebration of Flocktober until a later date. Instead, to celebrate the Halloween season I've decided to knock out as many spooky Bones from the Kickstarter bundle I received this summer.

Reaper Ghast

This fella has some ropey musculature and a weird pose, but I think overall it's not a bad sculpt. The detail in the face seemed a bit soft, but we'll just chalk that up to decay setting in.

Reaper Rats

Rats don't seem too exciting, but these little guys have quite a lot of personality. I gave them a black undercoat, and hit their undersides and legs with lighter grays. Ears, paws, snout and rail got a base of medium brown. I picked out some ridges on their tales with a few stripes of pink and touched up their ears with the pink as well.

I'm expecting a shipment of the Dwarven Forge terrain and tried out some of Stefan's painting techniques on the flagstone bases of the rats. Black undercoat with a drybrush of dark gray, a few stones picked out in medium brown and then an overall drybrush of greenish tan.

So much kickstarting! Reaper just launched their second Bones kickstarter. I thought I could resist, but already I'm being tempted by the quirky monsters they are offering.

Back With Some Vikings

Sometimes life can really get in the way of painting up tiny little men and throwing dice to see if they kill each other. It's taken a month to get our latest real life crises sorted out, but I finally managed to find some time to get back to the painting table. A raiding party of SAGA vikings after the jump.

These are all vikings by Gripping Beast. The berserkers are a bit ahistorical for the SAGA era, but after seeing the over-the-top promo for the new season of "Vikings" on the History Channel
I decided to go whole hog and give them each a pair of weapons. Total fantasy, but should make them easy to pick out on the game table. Maybe I can use them as old school D&D berserkers once my Dwarven Forge terrain arrives.

The hirdmen got a fairly quick paint job. I used a mix of washes, highlights and army painter in an effort to get them tabletop ready quickly. The LBMS shield transfers really do a lot to class them up.

I really like the dynamic pose on the Gripping Beast warlord. I swapped out the included plastic base for an oversized metal washer to work with the magnetic liners in my figure storage. LBMS shield transfer, red and cream for the clothing, black with 'oiled silver' drybrush for the metal and it's a wrap.

That's all for now. I haven't touched a blog or forum in the last month and feel completely out of the loop on what's happening in the world of wargaming. Anything momentous to report?

Gateway Games for Kids: GUBS

How do you transition a kid from the simple (but unchallenging) children's games like Candyland to something a little more substantial that the whole family can enjoy? I think I stumbled on to a great gateway game, completely by chance.

My son just turned five, and because we play a lot of games in our house he's acquired a decent collection of children's games. Candyland was great when he was two to teach him the concept of a game, and while he was thrilled with Chicken Cha Cha Cha and Curious George Hide and Seek Zoo, they didn't quite have the tactical complexity I look for in a game.

During our recent pack and move we unearthed a mint copy of Gubs, a game I had picked up from Barnes and Noble the previous Christmas for about 10 bucks and kept on hand as a back-up present in case we needed to fill out a visitor's stocking or provide an impromptu gift. With most of his toys and games packed up, we decided to give Gubs a try, hoping to eek out even 30 minutes of entertainment from it. I was surprised to find that it turned out to be a great little game and taught some important concepts I know we'll be able to build on in the future. A complete review of this little gem after the jump.

I won't go through a complete run down of the rules (they are available online), but in short, each player receives a hand and draws from a common deck of cards. On their turn they may play one or more Gub creatures from their hand or play cards that protect, steal, kill or otherwise alter the Gubs currently in play. There are three letter cards ("G", "U", and "B") in the deck that are played immediately when drawn. Once all three letters are out of the deck the game is over and players score one point for each Gub they currently control. This doesn't sound too revolutionary, so why was I so taken with it?

• Theme: The Gubs are tiny creatures that ride toads and take shelter under toadstools. The whimsical illustrations, silly card names, and diminutive characters were all accessible for the kids and adults. A game with identical mechanics but featuring German Pak40s and Sherman M4s just wouldn't have engaged everyone playing. The cute characters also indicated that this wasn't a game to take seriously, short circuiting some of the poor sportsmanship I expected from a competitive game.
• Tactical Choice: You need to play Gubs on to the table so that once the game ends you can score points, but playing Gubs leave them vulnerable to being stolen or removed from play by the other players. In many children's games I find that the game almost plays itself. The child spins a spinner or rolls a die and carries out the action. If there is a choice it's typically confined to the child's turn. In Gubs, you can plan several rounds in advance, holding your creatures back until you have the cards to protect them, or planning an ambush where you destroy your opponents defensive cards and sweep all of his Gubs with a lure. Did you read that? This is a game you can play with a five year old and you can teach them to set up ambushes. Ambushes!
• Reaction: There are a number of cards that allow you to cancel a card just drawn from the deck or played by an opponent. I recognized the same mechanic used in the now venerable Magic: The Gathering, but it also ties into the same types of decisions made when conducting opportunity fire in a wargame, or leaving some of your forces in reserve to react to an opponent's thrust.

Now don't get me wrong, Gubs is not a deep, strategic knife fight in card form. It's a light game, a bit of fun to pass the time while dinner is cooking, but I think it sets up a number of important concepts for kids, and it's fun to boot. I know my son loves playing, and has continued to ask to play regularly since we first tried the game a month ago. My wife took it to school to give her high school students something to do on the last few days before summer vacation and they enjoyed it so much they asked to borrow it to take to their classes and lunch throughout the day. I've found Gubs has proven to be a fun little game new or non-gamers enjoy.

Reaper Bones: Zombies

Working through more undead, I painted up the zombies included in the Reaper Bones kickstarter box. Having read about the hydrophobic nature of the Bones material I decided to try a different technique with these shambling undead. I wasn't too fond of the two disco boogie undead, so didn't mind sacrificing them in the name of science.

I cut the raised arm away from the figure's head and then used the boiling water technique to reposition the hand.

I gave these guys a base coat of green brown, followed by a brown ink wash, and highlights of the original green brown and finally a mix of green brown mixed with a light flesh tone.

I chose not to thin my paint with water for the base coats on these figures to see if I could create a tighter bond of the paint to the Bones plastic. Unfortunately I think the thick paint ended up obscuring details and introducing unnatural clumpy texture to their skin. I continued to finish them as normal, but they wound up looking as if I had given them a hasty drybrush job.

While the painting experiment itself was a bust, these knock kneed zombies turned out to be great sculpts. My paint job didn't do them justice, and I'm hoping to pick up quite a few more to create a real horde of zombies.  The malformed rotten zombies didn't improve much in my opinion though, even after painting. Maybe they could be clipped away from their base and used as dungeon dressing?

Previous Articles: I've already written up a few articles about painting Reaper Bones. You might want to check out:

• Are Reaper Bones Any Good?
• Converting and Painting Reaper Bones
• Skeletons

Painting Reaper Bones for Newbies: Skeletons

Did you get your Reaper Bones shipment? Do you suddenly have hundreds of miniatures beckoning to be painted? I've seen a huge upswing in the number of new painters who have jumped into the hobby with the Bones kickstarter which is great, but I can see how tackling a project like this could be a little intimidating for folks new to the hobby. Since I'd be working on painting up my own Vampire package of Bones, I thought I'd share my thoughts and tips for anyone working their way through the mountain of plastic Reaper delivered to us.

I'm getting started with the Skeleton warband. My tips for getting started painting Reaper Bones after the jump.

Previous Articles: I've already written up a few articles about painting Reaper Bones. You might want to check out:

• Are Reaper Bones Any Good?
• Converting and Painting Reaper Bones

Planning the Project

There are a lot of miniatures in that Reaper box. Instead of painting them up one at a time, I'm using a technique I learned to employ went painting up massive amounts of figures for the various army size wargames I play. To make the project more manageable I broke the figures down into subsets, the first set to tackle being the skeletons.

For new painters, the skeletons are perfect. Check it out, you only need a handful of paints for this project:

• White
• Bonewhite
• Sand Yellow
• Leather Brown
• Black
• Brown Ink
• Gunmetal

I've linked to some paints by Vallejo and Reaper (my preferred brands), but Games Workshop, Foundry, Coat d'Arms, and even craft paints (in a pinch) will work. Just look for water based acrylics.

I used cheap hobby brushes from craft stores for decades before finally upgrading to Army Painter and Winsor & Newton this year. Those dedicated brushes are awesome, but I'm sure they can appear pricey to someone just getting started, but they are worth it.

You'll also want a hobby knife. I'm not going to cover basing in this post, but if you are making a run to the hobby store to stock up on supplies keep an eye out for static grass and either basing material or sand (available from hardware stores, pet shops and coastlines. Be sure to clean it!)

Prepping the Figures

It's not the most fun part of figure painting but it needs to be done. Look carefully all over the figure for mold lines, thin ridges of material that typically run vertically around the edge of the figure. Use your hobby knife to slice those mold lines off. Be careful, it's easy to hack too much off and lose detail or slice into your thumb! If you miss a few mold lines, relax. We aren't entering these into a competition, I'm sure the painting police will forgive a few errant mold lines.

For normal plastic or metal figures I'd suggest priming them next, but Bones don't seem to need primer. Give them a good scrub in warm, soapy water to remove mold release grease so the paint will adhere better.

Finally, you probably have some Bones that were bent out of shape. A quick dip for 15 seconds in boiling water and then a bath in ice water allows you to reshape the figure to its original sculpt.

Painting

Finally! We get to the fun part. We're going to work through several phases: Base Coat, Ink Wash, Highlights, and Detailing.

First up is the base coat. That's simply putting a solid block of color on each unpainted surface of the model. For these skeletons I chose three simple colors: bonewhite for the skeleton's bones, leather brown for the bows, quivers, straps, backs and rims of shields, and sword handles, and black for the sword and spear points as well as the fronts of the shields.

If using a dropper bottle, put a few drops of paint on a palette. If it's thick and clumpy (like toothpaste) add a drop of water. If it seems thin and watery and not the shade of paint you expected (grayish pink instead of red for example), the paint may not be properly mixed. Give it a good shake until it is thoroughly mixed.

Thin paint is better than thick paint. With a single coat of thin brown paint on the figure's quiver, it doesn't cover completely. The paint settles into crevices and seeps away from ridges. That's ok. We're going to use an ink wash later to create a similar effect, but for now we can just give this area a second thin coat of paint for better coverage.

Once the base coat is done, double check that you didn't miss anything (arm pits, behind shields, etc.)

The Ink Wash

Next we'll be inking the figure. The base coat gives color to the figure, but the ink wash will help give definition. The ink is very thin, it seeps into crevices (simulating shadow) and seeps off high points (mimicking highlights).

Once the base coat is dry, put a drop or two of brown ink on your palette, add a drop or two of water (you can always apply a second or third wash if the first is too thin), and give all of the bonewhite and brown areas a dose of the brown ink.

Check out the darker areas created between the skeleton's toes, ribs, ulna, eye sockets, etc. I went back and reapplied a drop of brown ink to the figures eye sockets, and a few areas I wanted to stand out a bit more. The ink wash also picks out the wood grain on the spear shaft, the arrows in the quiver and other equipment.

Painting Highlights

Once the ink wash was dry I moved on to highlights. Although the ink wash slides off the raised areas of the figure, it still tints the original base coat. To make sure the figure "popped", I got out the original bonewhite and applied just a bit of color (sometimes just a single dot or stroke) to the prominent areas of the skeleton that would catch the light:

• Top of the skull
• the brows above each eye
• collarbones
• a single stroke on each large limb bone (humerus, ulna, femur)
• kneecap
• shoulder blades
• hip ridges
• a series of dots down the spine
• dots on some finger and foot bones 

Finally, I used pure white to pick out the skeleton's teeth. If you haven't painted tiny objects before, this can seem a bit intimidating. Don't worry, we are just trying to suggest the play of light over the figure. If you stand two inches from a painting by a Renaissance master you are going to see the individual paint strokes and the blobs of pigment, but step back a few feet and those imperfections disappear as you take in the whole scene. We're going for "table standard", a paint job that looks good in use as a game piece rather than an art piece for a painting competition.

Final Details

The metal bits painted black (spear points, sword blades) should get a few strokes of gunmetal silver. I usually paint along the edges of the weapon to highlight their deadly cutting edge, leaving a bit of black towards the center of the blade. 

I mixed my black and white paints into a dark gray and painted the center of the shield to highlight it. The central boss would be metal and got a bit of gunmetal too.

The shields are a place you can get pretty creative. A number of vendors sell generic decals that could be applied to the shield face, or you could give the shields a coat of color, but I decided to try my hand at some Greek-like designs to suggest these skeletons hail from a civilization predating the typical medieval European fantasy setting.

Hand painting shields is tricky, but all I did was look up some designs on Google and paint them in white, using black to go back and refine mistakes. I could have spent quite a long time on these but I knew I'd be making them look aged and just wanted a suggestion of a design.

I mixed up some brown, sand yellow and bonewhite and gave a light, scrubby drybrush over the edge and bottom half of the shield to simulate layers of dust accumulated during the skeletons' long slumber.

Basing and Finish

I glued each figure to a 1" metal washer, glued sand to the base, gave the whole thing a coat of brown highlighted with sand yellow and bonewhite and finally a few tufts of static grass and I was done!

And that's it! These are simple figures, and some of the detail is a little shallow, but even with a simple paint job they turn out nicely. I'm going to keep posting my progress on these Reaper Bones, and I'd love to see how you tackle the same figures. Let me know if you paint up your own skeletons :)