Model Quick Look

I picked up a dreadnought for my Dindrenzi fleet from Spartan Games. If the Battleship I build up in my last WIP was big, this beast is huge. For reference, I photographed it side by side with a second battleship:

I do quite like the model. I've build most of the model, but the final assembly is going to wait until I finish most of the painting. I think it will be hard to impossible to do a good job on the space between the two weapon booms after assembly is complete.

Stage Craft

Amidst all my other projects, I've been working on improving my miniatures photography. It is amazing what even a little effort can do to improve the quality of each picture. I've been using a simple, portable photo studio for a while, but most of the pictures seen on this blog have been taken on my miniatures bench for the simple reason that I already flood my work area with light. It helps me to see what I'm doing while I work, but as an added bonus, it provides superior illumination for photography.

Battletech Conversions - first in a series

I've been playing Battletech for many, many years. In recent times, I've been increasingly customizing miniatures with alternate poses, or with conversion parts to represent variant units. This short build  outlines the work I did to both re-pose and re-configure one of the Nova Omnimech models from Ironwind Metals.

I started with a lot of parts, and my first move was to start cutting pieces apart to make more. As you can see in the photo, I had already sliced the right leg into three pieces before I started taking pictures. In this shot, the right ankle has already been glued down onto the matching foot, and the whole assemblage has been attached to an Ironwind hex base.

Dindrenzi BB WIP - Finale?

I got a lot more work done on the battleship over the past week, and I think I am ready to call it "done" for now. (I may revisit the details as I paint up more of the fleet, and get a better feel for the over all look.)

Even through I said I didn't want to individually paint each hull panel, I wound up adding a thin highlight stripe to the edges of each of those panels. It's a little hard to see in the picture above, but there are highlights along the edges of the model, and of all the panels. I used a mix of the Scurf Green and Vallejo Model Color Intermediate Green to arrive at a mild highlight color.

Firestorm Armada: A Review

I have (finally) written up my thoughts on Firestorm Armada as a review of the game. This is my first full review, so I am still working out the format - we'll see how it goes!

Synopsis
Firestorm Armada is the second release by Spartan Games. It extends Spartan's excellent line of miniatures and their particular style of naval combat into the realm of Space Opera. The initial release provided four different fleets to choose them, divided into the Alliance of Kurak set against the Zenian League, as they battle for control of Fathom's Reach. Since that time, they have added two more core races and a few smaller support fleets which you can mix into your forces.

Firestorm Armada is aptly named, as the game seems to be geared towards substantial fleets ranging from around 10-20 individual ships, plus assorted light fighter elements, referred to as "Wings". Given the scale of both the games and the models, it is natural to draw comparisons to Games Workshop's Battlefleet Gothic, and, perhaps, to Mongoose Publishing's A Call to Arms, but I would say that the overall feel of FA is quite different from both, and it stands very well on its own.

Read on for the detailed review...