I have discovered a new blog, the Ooh Shiny Complex. I liked his Tusk game report.
From the Warp has a lot of links to vehicle and armor modeling articles. Gotta be something useful in there.
Scott Pyle of Superfigs and Chaos in Cairo (and other places) fame now has a blog.
I've been hanging out on the Lead Adventure Forum lately. There are lots of really talented people there, and I've enjoyed these very cool project threads in the Future Wars section-- the Fallout conversions thread has some very impressive work, the Scruntian Slavers is very creative, and a relly cool STARGUARD! project with a fully pink gaming table. Really. Anyway, the site is full of high-quality stuff. Check it out.
Just stumbled across Skankgame.com, home of 2085: Warlords of the Wastelands. I haven't taken a look at the rules yet, but based on the quality Galleries (complete with Thundarr conversions) and very useful Articles pages, it's probably worth a look. I remember seeing his high rise and rubble articles before, but I never noticed this, the absolute coolest terrain idea I've seen in some time-- wrecked cars in plaster!! Absolutely the coolest!! More here.
I just discovered the Game Designo & Development forum on RPGnet. The focus is generally on role-playing games, but there's a lot of general info in there, especially in the sticky Games Designers' Resource Thread.
The Blog of the Wasteland...the Ayatollah of Paint and Converter! "I am gravely disappointed. Again you have made me paint up my dogs of war. Look at what you made of your old figures. Why? Because you're talented! You hoard your bits."
"Don't listen to him!"
"Now, my prisoners say you plan to take your rules into the Wasteland. You sent them out this morning to find a set of rules. A game big enough to haul those fat conversions you made. What an awesome plan!"
"No! No more talk! We go in! We paint! We'll paint them!"
"Be still my dog of war! l understand your eagerness. We've all watched someone start a project we love. But we do it my way!"
"Losers wait!"
"We do it my way! Time is our ally. The setting will be ours. Then, you shall have your spectacle."
Sorry...just such a quotable move, you know!
SpaceHulk.BeckerF.com is the home to an awesome 3D Space Hulk set up. He also includes a lot of info about how he made the terrain. And he's from Stuttgart, my wife's home town!
Firezone Studios has some very nice pictures, especially of some recent 6mm figures apparently for Future War Commander.
Hey! Dan Abnett of Eisenhorn fame has a blog. Seems like all the cool kids are doing that...
I really liked looking through Cursed Treasures. He has lots of really nice, inspirational pictures and some cool little terrain pieces.
Nick's 5150 SciFi Skirmish is a nice page devoted to 5150. It has some really nice pictures of games in action, as well as a well-developed variant called Roach Wars. I absolutely love the look of the swarm of roaches coming across the table...I'm going to have to get some of my own!
Not just a really cool name, Drunken Samurai Painting Blog has a lot of really nice pictures of a variety of miniatures, as well as some modeling tips and game reports.
The Wargames Shed has a lot of interesting info, check it out.
From the Warp has a lot of terrain, modeling and painting tutorials.
Olicanalad's Games has some interesting posts on modelling and conversions. He's also a Piquet player, and active on the Piquet list.
Lord Ashram's House of War has an awesome interior decorator.
Gawd 'elp us Games has a set of alternative 40k rules called Forge of War, using some modern rules mechanics like Activation Rolls. They look like something I want to try out...
Dark Reign, a Dark Heresy RPG site, hosts several 40k themed comics-- three out of four of which are clearly Order of the Stick inspired...but Servants of the Imperium was pretty good.
Mike and Ali McVey have a blog with lots of pictures...
Scroll down to the Coming Soon section of Recreational Conflict's front page, and take a look at that sweet looking Big Daddy.
I just found this Adepticon gallery of terrain. Lots of stuff to steal from in there. I haven't looked through it all, but I really liked what I saw in Marcin Ignasiak's gallery.
DEI GRECI has some pictures of his awesome scratch building of a super heavy 40k tank, along with an example of his resin casting technique.
I really enjoyed browsing through Geektactica. He has lots of really nicely painted figures, but I really like his series on constructing cheap Western buildings detailed here.
Fictional Reality is an interesting downloadable wargaming magazine. They cover a very wide variety of topics, so check it out.
Freewargamesrules blog link to a new 2mm wargaming site. I love the idea of 2mm.
Miniaturespace has a ton of really inspirational pictures.
DiceCollector.com hosts the world's largest collection of dice-- 25,769. I can see that as the sort of activity that starts out fun and exciting, but by the time you have so many that you are referring to databases to prevent duplicates, the real fun is pretty much sucked out of it. I would have to put them all in a tub at some point and jump in. Well, maybe without the d4s...
The Chambers of Miniatures has a great gallery in its Archive, and I think it would take a couple of days to get through the Nexus of Links.
Dampf's modeling page has a wealth of scratch building projects and really inspirational photos.
The Workbench is a blog worth checking out. He has some very nice pictures, sculpts his own figures and has painting tip videos. Very nice.
One Man's Mission to Spend Less and Game More... Best of luck to you! If you can pull it off, you're a better man than me. I haven't bought anything hobby related all day, I'm doing pretty well so far...
Craig of the d6 Generation has some really sweet pictures of his Uncharted Seas set up. Everybody seems to like this game. I'm trying to stay away, but the siren call is hard to resist...
Tabletop Terrain can suck up a lot of your time, even if you don't play the games covered. There are a lot of nice terrain ideas there, and don't miss the tutorials. He uses Ultracal 30 for his Hirst molds, may have to try that.
Unfinished Armies should have been the title for my blog. I'm jealous! I always love to see painting desks, and his reminds me a lot of mine. His modeling skills, however, put me to shame. Guess I need to work on my quantity...
Tiny Tin Toys is a nice little blog. It's first post was in September...and it's last post was in that same September. I hope it gets updated again, but I'm afraid it's yet another gamer's flash in the pan blog. Still, I liked this post about creating custom markers for his army. Very nice, plus he linked to this Coding Horror post about how Quantity trumps Quality. I'd seen that post before, but forgotten about it, and I'm glad to have stumbled across it again, as I do agree with it. My children are very, very tired of me constantly harping about how they have to actually keep doing something before they can expect to actually do it well, but I forget about it myself. When I haven't painted or done something hobbyish for an extended period, and finally get back into, I can really feel that my skills have weakened.
Oh, yeah! Play the old Aliens board game with this flash version.
Ultrawerke once again shows you how it's done.
MiniWarGaming is a video-heavy blog with some useful terrain tips.
Baron Vega's Solo Wargaming Page was always a nice collection of solo wargaming information, but it appears to have died. I have a mirror from 2005 I saved here.
I've been meaning to take a look at the Fast and Dirty SciFi Skirmish rules for a while. It looks like there's been some recent work on them, and it's probably a good time to do so. They also have a Yahoo group.
Juuuuust in case you were wondering what to get me for Christmas...
These are the coolest Necron figures I've seen. Also, it includes some very interesting rust techniques I will have to try.
Iron Mitten is an interesting blog with the coolest campaign reports I've seen. I also loved the Death by Decal cartoon. Funny and cool stuff!
Doc's Projects is a nice 40k-focused blog. I was very interested in this recent entry on bases, although he doesn't list Iron Halo or Scibor Monstrous Miniatures. He also has lots of nice pictures, so browse around.
Chicago Terrain Factory has a lot of informative articles. There's some nice pictures of his Hirst Arts projects, info on resin casting, and more. I really like his tournament markers.
Boromir and Kermit's Hobby Page is chock full of interesting content, including a custom Blood Bowl board. I've got to get around to updating the blog roll soon...
Gaming Terrain is a very new blog which looks like could be interesting to following. Also, I stumbled across a forum I hadn't seen before, Mini Art of War.
Steve's Random Musing has an interesting post about using points motivator software to encourage painting. Sounds interesting. I'm interested in making more work more focused, but this sounds a bit too much like turning my hobby into a second job.
Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog looks like an interesting blog, with recent posts on a HOTT campaign, something I often think about, and some very nice "mud-brick" terrain. He also has a lot of posts on Cold War Commander, and is sculpting his own figures.
The best tip I've seen in a while comes from FichtenFoo. I've always been bad about leaving seams and mold lines on my figures. Metal files work well, but quickly clog with soft lead. Sanding is too clumsy to get into small areas. However, FichtenFoo's sanding sticks have been a real eye-opener here. Quick to make and disposable, they are just the thing for a lot of material removal.
This Inquisitor and Grey Knight Squad by Victoria Lamb are some of the coolest figures I've seen.
Hlynrian is a blog from a guy who is sculpting his own armies. He seems pretty early in the process, but I really like his sculpting sites of interest post. That is a commendable objective, to sculpt and cast your own army, and I wish him lots of luck!
I've had a lot of fun browsing IRONDOG Studios this weekend, especially the very inspirational Tater Titan.
Okay. Well. I recently complained about how much I hated photography. I have taken some good pictures in the past, it's just always been a huge hassle-- set up a light tent, remember all the friggin' settings on my camera, muck about with lighting, loading each picture in some complicated program like GIMP, etc... It just wasn't worth it to me. However, reading that post from Wee Toy Soldiers, I really thought he made it sound manageable, so I took another crack at it-- and was suitably impressed. It's still a bit of a hassle, but something I'm willing to manage to get pictures that look like this. I think the key thing I brought away from the article was using Picasa. It was simple and had all the tools I needed ready and easily available, as well as letting me have quick access to all my different photographs. Win! So, I went ahead and took pictures of my Orlock Necromunda gang, something I've been wanting to do for a while.
First, here are the Goliaths and Ratskin brave again, in much better presentation. You can even see the eyes!
And now, on to my Orlocks. These guys have been painted over the span of 14-15 years or so, ever since Necromunda first came out. Thus, they are painted in a variety of styles.
The Ratskin Scouts.
The oldish (new at the time) metal Catachans made EXCELLENT Orlocks, many without any conversions!
The Heavies. The rocket launcher is a converted Catachan loader.
The Leaders. The Catachan officer was a later addition, with a lot of milliput work. He has rat skull insignia on his shoulder pads.
The Juves.
Close combat specialists.
Whew! The guy on the right needs some touching up.
Shooters. If I recall correctly, the boltgun on the right used to be a lasgun.
More Catachans.
Bounty Hunter, Scummer and a Warmaster Necromancer as a Weird. If you look, his shoulderpads are Scaly hands, and each skull is from a Scaly, including the little children Scaly skulls. I mean, this guys really hates Scalies.
Yes, as though to mock me, my surfing around today alighted upon the very interesting and informative article entitled You Don't Need A Fancy Camera (To Take Great Photos of Your Miniatures).
sixtwentyeight has some very nice pictures of his modern Israelis for CWC, as well as other really beautiful 6mm figures.
I always love to see pictures of people's gamerooms and imagine how I could do mine. I kind of think his "GM" space could be a little more pretentious...maybe he should raise it up on a 6" dais. ;-)
TAB Studio has some nice miniature painting tutorial videos available.
Hero Machine is pretty cool. It's one of those character image generators, where you can choose expressions, hair styles, clothes, etc... and make an illustration of your character. Hero Machine is pretty cool in that you can select an item at random, including randomizing the entire character, giving some pretty interesting and unusual designs.
I ran across DSRGames at Historicon. They had a number of very nicely printed maps on display, and the prices mentioned sounded very reasonable.
I've uploaded my pictures from the first two days of Historicon.
CWC is a new blog devoted to a 6mm modern project. It's just started, but the photographs are nice and it looks very promising.
Okay, here's why you haven't seen any updates on this site in a month, and why my gaming friends haven't seen much of me, either! I've been working on a web 2.0/social networking-style website for gaming, GamerBits.com. It's extremely raw and untested at this point, so expect to struggle through some problems, but it seems pretty close to usable to me at this point. I don't want to run around directing tons of people to it, just a few people willing to help test it out and provide some feedback. The audience of this site seems about right, so both of you go check it out! Not you, Mom.
Colin Hagreen has an interesting challenge in Project 154, painting one of every combination race/character class in D&D. What, no alignment considerations? No multi-classing? ;-)
All About Miniatures episode 6 is up, featuring a review of THW's Nuts!. Also, Napoleon 101 has episode 16 up, covering Eylau.
Upior Nagi's Hell Hole is an interesting new blog, check it out.
Murphy has taken the patriotic battles of the peoples of Bongolesia and is recreating them in miniature.
So it appears the Miniblogster site is officially dead, and the author will now be posting at Tabletop Gaming News.
MiniatureWargaming.com/ is running Heroscape related links all this month. I'll definitely be checking it out.
AllAboutMiniatures episode 3 is available. I must have missed the TMP announcement. Napoleon 101 is up to episode 13, which covers the war of the Third Coalition and apparently ends before Austerlitz.
I've always wanted the History of [U.S.] Political Parties posters from HistoryShots, and I see they have now some military history posters-- History of the Confederate Army and U.S. Army Divisions in World War II. Edit: If you like things like this, check out the classic graph of Napoleon's casualties during his Russian invasion, by Minard.
I just saw Saxe-Bearstein, a blog primarily about the construction of a fictional 18th century army. It has some nice other stuff, too, like this simple linear campaign system.
I just found shrimproll. Not too frequently updated, but some really nice pictures.
I can't pronounce Aufklärungsabteilung but fortunately this new blog's text is in English, is readable and is very interesting. Added to the blogroll.
Colonel Marbles has started a weekly vidcast. I'm not much on watching videos on my computer, but this is short, just a rundown of his top 10 SF/F miniatures released in the last week.
A few weeks ago, Miniature Service Center sent out some Trident Designs 40mm AWI samples. I got one, and have just painted it up.
It really is a nice figure, and painted up well. I don't think it took much longer than a regular 28mm figure. There's more to paint, but everything is larger and easier to get to. I really like the figure, and plan on getting more once the British Lights or Line infantry are available. Grenadiers don't seem like regular skirmish opponents to me. I'm thinking of just getting about 10 figures per side and doing some of the Jersey fights.
MiniatureGeneral is a blog by John from the AllAboutMiniatures podcast.
AllAboutMiniatures is a nice podcast. Take a listen.
Wargames Blogs is a list of wargaming blogs compiled by Derek Hodge.
Lead Adventure is a new forum devoted primarily to "Adventerous" gaming (Pulp, Old West, Gothic Horror, etc...). It's run by Alex Bews of Witchhunter.net and his new blog
Taskforce Productions, makers of We Can Be Heroes and Baptism of Fire, is keeping an online diary.
As a kid, I loved Strat-o-matic Baseball. With the World Cup in full swing, I thought that would be fun to do with soccer! However, despite there being a Strat-o-matic hockey, there is no Strat-o-matic soccer. So, I started looking around.
It seems like the UK equivalent to Strat-o-matic is Lambourne Games, "the Home of British Sports Replay Gaming." They have several systems, primarily Full Time, but it would be pretty pricey to order to try out-- I'm estimating about $60-70.00 USD with shipping. Maybe eventually-- the demo of Stats Soccer Replay certainly looks intriguing.
Looking around, there are a few free versions at tabletop-sports.com. I downloaded Fast Dice Soccer, an Excel/Visual Basic system, and fooled around with it a bit. Fun, but everything is under the hood there, and it was a little unsatisfying in the end. Right now, I'm printing out the Fast Action Cards (it took me a while to find out what FAC stood for) for Fastcard Soccer, favorably reviewed by Mike Siggins of Wargamer's Notebook/WI fame.
In the end, though, it may be worth buying Full Time and their decent collection of seasons (although not much Bundesliga).
Historical Miniatures Gaming: The World's Greatest Hobby is a nice site, which includes several terrain and modelling tips.
Miniatures Gamer Radio has started up, a podcast directly relating to Miniatures gaming. In other news, Napoleon 101 is up to episode 3. Some good stuff to listen to while your painting.
Walt O'Hara is reporting from Cold Wars. Wish I could be there.
The General's Tent looks like an interesting blog, which the author has promised to update regularly. Like every other blog in existance! ;-) Best of luck to Coyote, I've linked him in my blogroll.
IanH's Wargames Pages has moved (formerly here).
Napoleon 101 has started on the Podcast Network. I've sampled the first episode, and it sounds pretty good.
The Stipsicz Hussars have a nice website with galleries and articles.
The Waterloo Campaign in Miniature looks like a very nice Napoleonics weblog that has started up, primarily discussing the troops at Quatre-Bras.
Despite being a fair Sci-Fi fan, I have never seen an episode of Firefly until today. I guess, despite assurances from friends, I just didn't have much faith that a Sci-Fi TV series today would be any good. I just got the first two series disks from NetFlix today. My wife was busy with her sister all evening, so I was home alone and watched both disks trough, finishing at about 1:30 AM tonight! I thought it was very good, although I didn't care so much for the literal Old West cowboys in space stuff. I will probably buy the series.
Thanks to Zac of Tabletop Gaming news for the heads up on MiniBlogster, a nice news blog. I've added it on the right.
I just added Tabletop Gaming News and Little Wars to the blogroll, check 'em out.
LSHM has some extremely nice pictures of Faron Bell's 6mm French Army for Grand Armée.
Patrick's Hobby Shed looks like it will turn into an interesting blog.
JC Figures (from JC McDaniel, sculptor for Devil Dog Design) is now available. Check out the awesome CLAWS unit!
Chest of Colors has a gallery of some very impressive Tyranid conversions.
Neal at the War Store has a blog I just found, TheWarStoreNews.
Kieran Mahony has updated his 6mm Fantasy Wargaming with more pictures of his nice armies.
The guys at the Stranglehold have a blurb page up. Man, that sounds promising!
Fellow blogger fatgoblin has a very nice miniatures gallery among many others at the NapNuts galleries. Also, there are some wondrous works among the members list at Displaced Miniatures.
Colonel Marbels Miniatures Masterworks seems to be generally idle, but its Army Showcases are invaluable if they cover what you're looking for. I like the Fishmen and Pirates.
Just ran across Mini Realms. Mostly fantasy/sci-fi, but there's some interesting and creative stuff in there, like some custom sculpts. I'm adding it to the blogroll.
I've checked out the Republique page at the War Times Journal a lot for their OOBs for Wagram, but I just saw they also have uniform painting guides, always nice.
Small Obsessions has a new painting lair with a very nice layout. I should be getting a new area soon...stay tuned for details...
The Surpluswargaming Yahoo group has been created to replace the now-defunct FigureTrades group.
Bryan's VSF pages have some nice modelling tips for terrain and other things.
I ran across a few Wargaming weblogs I wasn't aware of. NapNuts has a news page, and member Captain Arjun has started Wargames Correspondance. Arjun links to Confessions of a Wargamer and fatgoblin's ranting. Searching TMP, I found 28mm a day, the humorous Country Diary of Carlos Plynkes, Maksim Smelchak's 6mm-Minis (man, I help admin the 6mm_Miniatures yahoo group with him, and didn't know about that), and Junior General has a blog.
BritishBattles.com looks like a very good overview of the British involvement in the Horse and Musket period, Crimea and the Zulu War.
The Alchemist's Journal is a well-established blog devoted mostly to GW games and Flames of War, but he does have some very interested modeling posts.
The Trojan Bunny's Gaming Blog has just started up.
minimods is a blog devoted to 28mm modern wargaming. It looks very interesting.
DisplacedMiniatures.com looks to be a free gallery/article hosting site. There are many high quality pictures from various people available.
Here are a couple more stereoscopic images I made:
Zaphod Beeblebrox of TMP has a blog, Zaphod's Heads. On the downside, it's not all miniatures, but on the upside, he's got decent taste in music. He just needs to listen to more Saint Vitus, Clutch or Sleep.
The Napnuts Gallery has a number of very nice game pictures, especially the Lost Diaries of Captain Arjun.
Kieran Mahony's 6mm Wargaming page has some great 6mm pictures and terrain tips. He also includes how he assembled his LotR armies.
Ty Beard's weblog is back up, along with a Fistful of TOWs blog. Great news!
The Uncanny Valley is an interesting article that describes how less-than-perfect attempts at the perfect human form turns observers off, while those same observers may enjoy both stylised and perfect human forms.
1/3rd of the way done! w00t!!
I batted around three or four ideas seriously, but wound up doing eldritch horror set in 1920's Cairo. I wonder where I got that idea. It's much less pulpy than CiC, though.
The Napoleonic Wargaming Gallery looks pretty nice, and includes the Napoleonic reviews from the now deceased Spanner & Yank.
Mentioned in Dispatches, the home page of the North Down Warlords, looks to have some good info, especially including the very valuable Napoleonic Contents, which has a beginner friendly guide to painting French infantry uniforms.
Mike Lewis of Planet Wargaming has the website up for his new company, Black Hat Miniatures. Look under "News" for pictures of the greens for the first three packs. Looks good!
Make sure and follow Mike Lewis's Planet Wargaming as he is starting his own wargaming company up.
Milton Soong of Mandarin's Manor has released a public beta version of Little Cyber Wars, a utility allowing you to manipulate a virtual miniature wargame.
Chris Kemp has a free set of operational WW2 and post-WW2 rules, Not Quite Mechanized. He also a an Indo-Pakistani mini-campaign with some nice 15mm pictures.
Andrew Thompson's Vietnam Wargaming Site has a nice 25/28mm gallery and some modelling and painting tips.
Just found out about Miniature Wargaming, an active blog.
Mark Siefert has started a new RPG and miniature wargaming blog.
Andy Maloney's the Basement, a great site devoted mostly to 20mm modern and WW2 wargaming and TAC: Arc of Fire, has moved to a new URL in the Loft!
David's Wargaming Depot is a nice site. He's mostly into 6mm Napoleonics but has other stuff on his site. There's also a very revealing size comparison pic of Irregular vs. Adler 6mm Nappies.
The Wargames Journal has had a redesign, and removed their subscribtion requirement. Nice! If you haven't checked it out, do so; there is a lot of good information there.
Milton Soong has a wargaming weblog, Mandarin's Corner. It looks great, although it doesn't appear to be updated with regularity. Check it out!
If you are in the need of ficticious names, check out Chris Pound's language machines.
Paintfront.com is an interesting site devoted to 15mm WW2 painting and gaming.
The Kapiti Fusiliers Historic Wargaming Club has a very nice website, including directions on making Spanish buildings for the Peninsular War.
The Perfect Captain's Hompage contains a number of free rulesets and interesting tidbits.
Nappy15 is a nice site devoted to 15mm Napoleonic wargaming.
Manoj of India Wargamers offers a tutorial on how he makes his excellent maps for his game reports.
You can now find the Basement at http://ajmaloney.home.comcast.net/.
Victorious Colors has some more Historicon 2003 pictures under his Events page.
Dioramaterials looks like a useful resource for terrain material.
Ty Beard, author of Fistful of TOWs, has started his own wargaming weblog.
MiniFanAddict.com is another miniatures weblog, apparantly mostly focusing on fantasy and Sci-Fi figures.
Valley is Andrew Martin's site which includes several interesting items related to wargaming and RPGs, such as DS2 rules and scenarios and FMA-based skirmish rules.
Lloydian Aspects has some interesting information, including the wargaming section and the robust modelling tips section (which includes a nice scenery subsection).
Mike Siggins' czapska.com contains an archive of his Notebook articles from Wargames Illustrated, as well as a nice gallery and large list of links.
In addition to the hex grid system and other terrain tips mentioned before, the Metro East Gaming Association has rules reviews, including the Blue Sky series and Kampfgruppe Commander.
My Wargames Page (Warning: My Wargames Pages is not actually mine!) has a number of interesting items on it, such as a nice gallery and Chain Reaction battle report, and a some nice terrain and Peter Pig Vietnam figures painted up for Charlie Company.
If you haven't visited Major General Tremorden Rederring's Colonial-era Wargames Page yet, you've been missing out on one of the single greatest wargaming resources on the net.
The J-8 Shop has some interesting items on it, including original rules, Command Decision, 2300AD and GZG items.
History Lessions for Junior Generals is a historical miniatures site geared towards teaching younger kids and students in the classroom about history.
Lead Addict is a new minature gaming news site which looks interesting.
Deano Ware has started a new miniatures new site, Miniature Gaming News, from the remains of Wargames Weekly. It looks very promising.
The Basement has been updated, including modifications to the Arc of Fire house rules.
The figuretrades Yahoo Group is a resource to assist figure sellers and buyers.
In addition to the Consumer Affairs message board at TMP, check out the minidealerdiscussion yahoo group.
Check out the Allied R/C Combat web site. These guys take remote controlled 1/144th scale battleships mounted with CO2 powered BB canons and try to sink each other. Sounds like a blast!
Wargames Foundry is working on a new website design, which includes the new Compendium deals.
MilitaryGaming.com is a site devoted to both board and miniature wargaming.