Whooo... 30,000 views!

It was my hope to get to 30,000 views by Christmas, and right now we're at 30,002 so thank you everyone!

That means that to celebrate somebody will be getting a set of

Goblink Airmen!

As I mentioned before, these are going to be strictly limited to 20 sets and one will be going for free to whoever's blog refers the highest number of people to Fimm McCool's before Christmas. The contest has started and there is a clear winner so far... but not too late to start sending people over for mulled wine and a mince pie, especially if you have lots of traffic through your site!

Now for some sad news. I have heard today that Stewart Griffin who runs Griffin Moulds (who cast for Oakbound and many other miniatures companies) sadly died from a heart attack on Monday. Obviously this will delay the casting of The Woods and Goblink miniatures, but much more importantly it's a loss of a great man both in terms of his expertise and his love for life. He will be much missed and I want to extend my sympathies to his family and friend who have been hit hard by this in the run up to Christmas. Peace be with you.

Duct's End- The Sanity Clause: Necromunda winter campaign 2014

It's annual Necromunda fight time for BOGGARTS! Here's what this year has in store:

 

Duct's End is named for the enormous waste duct which deposits its effluent slime into the Sump Sea at this point. The habitation extends on two sides of the bay, the Old Town to the east and the New Town to the west. Old Town is very, very old and largely derelict, mostly depleted of anything useful and reduced to piles of rubble. It is good hunting ground for giant Necromundan rats and a haunt of unsavoury types... unsavoury even by Underhive standards that is! New Town is still quite old and pretty decayed, but is where most of the inhabitants live and contains a number of seedy watering holes and clubs. Most renowned of these is Effluvia, where most of the daily news can be gathered.

The New Town docks are mostly derelict and deserted, the slime is too foul for most shipping and the few hulks that remain are relics of a bygone age when the water was merely disgusting. There is one functioning ship, if it could be called that, the DDPVCCDB, which sometimes takes charters to other coastal townships. The captain of the DDPVCCDB, Mariner Carey, drinks at the Spear and Kraken to avoid being anywhere near his ship and accidentally being asked to take her out. Further along the docks is the curious Bathysphere port. The oldest living inhabitant of Duct's End remembers being told her grandfather saw the Bathysphere launched, but since then it has been mired and is rusting away. The craft is entrusted to Noddy the holder, a diminutive character normally to be found at the Pudding Club. On the end of the spit lies Duct's End Observatory, the township's small claim to greatness. Here a handful of students study the condition of the hive ceiling far above in an attempt to discern omens and portents in the constellations of creepers, patterns of rust and slime and the movements of small creatures. Balthazar, one of the more eager students, is responsible for recent claims of some truth in the legend of the Sanity Clause.

On the other side of the bay from the observatory lie the Doors of Silence. This is a place shunned by locals and the source of fear enough to keep the surrounding area uninhabited. There are great metal doors in the ground, the purpose of which have been long forgotten, and tales are told that unknown horrors lurk in the depths below. A detachment of militia are posted to keep watch over the region, which indicates some form of genuine severity and threat, but little has happened for so long that they are more inclined to spend their time 'policing' the settlement than guarding the rusty doors. The actual policing of the township is the duty of the regional Arbites who reside in the new precinct house, but they are very rarely seen. The placing of the precinct house moved at about the same time as the building of the new town since the regional Arbites have a policy of basing themselves away from the centres they are charged with overseeing. The old precinct house is locked up, but lights can be seen there and shadowy figures go in and out occasionally.

Peter Acs has been building a Cawdor gang for the fight, visit his blog for some nice paintwork!

Judge Chico and the Dorfs from Hell!

As you might be aware, Mr Chico commissioned me to make him some Evil Space Dorfs... you can see his posts over on his blog.

Ordinarily I let whoever commissions miniatures from me paint them first. There's something very satisfying about putting a brush to a mini that nobody anywhere in the world has ever painted before! But in this instance I couldn't resist. Chico was pretty much the first person to paint the Marsh demons so fair's fair, anyhow I can safely say right now that mine are the best painted versions of these minis in the whole world right now... and I can't say that very often! Of course they are the ONLY painted versions, but don't steal my thunder!

So here they are; wicked Judge Chico, his faithless companion Cat the Cyber-Goat and two of his cronies.

And yes, as you can see his badge really does say 'Chico', the goat's says 'Cat' too.

And just to prove I haven't been totally slacking off on the Oldhammer Salvation Army project, here's GuttedRunner's Dark Elf Blood Bowl star player:

A ton of progress from Oakbound as the year grows old.... and a chance of free minis!

Well well well.... I recently posted a winter newsletter from Oakbound on the blog, but now I have EVEN MORE updates to show you!

First off, they've been a long time coming but the master castings of The Woods miniatures are finally here:



 

Now, inevitably there are always little issues to sort out with first batches. In this case there are a few missing claws and teeth and some truncated horns. Nothing too serious. Unfortunately there was a more serious error though in one mould, which has led to two figures being in need of rescuing and recasting.

 

Sadly that means there will be a delay and more cost involved in sending them, but at least they look salvageable- the essential details are preserved.

 

Good news along with the bad. The batch also included fresh castings of the Myeri Marsh Demons which are for sale again through the Oakbound Shop. But even more excitingly it included....

 

 

Chico's Evil Space Dorfs! Yes, there are a mystery two figures there as well which will be unveiled.... sometime soon. I'll let the man himself do that when they get to his post box! These guys should be for sale soon, along with other Dorfs most probably, but no hard and fast details yet. There's also my crew for the Oldhammer at sea battle at BOYL 2015- The Airship Goblinks!

 

 

I'm nabbing enough castings to adequately crew my zeppelin, but in case you did want to get hold of some there'll be a strictly limited release of about 20 of these sets available...

 

TO GET YOURSELF A SET OF GOBLINKS!

 

You'll need to either be one of the first five people to order from the Oakbound shop after Christmas day OR snap up one of the ten sets that are listed in the shop from January OR...

 

link to Fimm McCool's blog from yours. I'm trying to break the 30,000 views mark by Christmas and need 100 more views to do it. If the target gets met and your link shows up in the traffic sources as the highest-ranking referring URL I'll send you a set of Goblinks absolutely free. Isn't Fimm a nice chap? :)

 

One last addition, there was another figure in with this most recent batch, for an excellent chap called Christopher who runs Mad Imp Studios who seem to be on the brink of producing some very lovely dungeon scenery which I must get to go with my Twisting Catacombs items. He hasn't given me permission to show it, but if he does I will. In the meantime go check out their facebook page and given them some support to get this brilliant project up and running!

Myeri Marsh Demons- back in stock at Oakbound.co.uk

Latest batch of Marsh Demon and Fenfolk castings have arrived from the foundry- orders now being taken at Oakbound.co.uk and should still be time for them to arrive by Christmas. The rest of the Woods range should be on the site for purchasing with all your lovely Christmas money in late December!

Oakbound's Winter Newsletter

A rundown of the year from Oakbound- enjoy!

Dragonmeet Rundown

Time to tell you how great Dragonmeet was...

 Explaining Tripods to two groups simultaneously, Andy the Balrog takes the Peg boys through a demo game.

This was our first year attending Dragonmeet as Oakbound Games and it was a brilliant experience. Their new venue at Earl's Court seems to have been a massive success as over 1600 people attended over the eight hours the event was running, that's an average of 200 people per hour- and most of them seemed to stop at the Oakbound stall. The stands were really very good value for the size and space and there was ample on-street parking around, despite the arrival of a Christmas Market on the main road nearby.

It was really great to see so many little companies and independent games creators and traders around. In contrast to the Games Expo, where there was lots of independents but most people seemed to be shopping at Leisure Games' discounted stand, it was brilliant to see so many of the little people shifting so much stock and receiving so much attention. We sold out of miniatures and nearly sold all our remaining copies of Tripods, not to mention taking orders on a few more of the limited edition Woods background books.

In the gaming room there was plenty of space, but so many varied games going on, including an enormous Pandemic challenge. Sadly we didn't get to watch much because of being so busy, but being positioned next to the door we were party to a lot of the highs and lows of the attempt to halt the infection! We also got to participate in the splendid peg game...

I finally got round to picking up the Investigator and Keeper's guide for Achtung Cthulhu and am looking forward to studying the Third Reich's interaction with the Old Ones. I also got some bargains off the bring and buy (helped to be dropping off stuff as they came in!) and some very nice pyrogravured (not laser etched!) jewellery for Christmas presents.

The atmosphere of the place was really nice, everybody was very positive and there were, to my knowledge, no issues with harassment or derision.

Thanks and congratulations to the excellent Modiphius Entertainment who organised the day, I'll definitely be returning to Dragonmeet!

Lost in the Oakbound Woods part 4- Preparing for Dragonmeet

It's Dragonmeet at Earl's Court this weekend....

Thought I'd better sort out some nice display for Oakbound Miniatures, enter my almost-nearly-finished terrain!

Of course, this is only some of it... it's a small table after all and Tripods! needs some room too! Today's main task has been sorting the water and foliage. As you can see, the tall one now doubles as a point of sale display for blister packs.

Tree branches take two forms. For the barer trees lower down the slopes I pulled sections of hobby lichen and glued them onto the branches trying to get the stalks aligned for a natural look. Higher up the slopes I used branches pulled from one of those toilet-brush-style model railway trees. These are nylon bristles with flock glued on and give a nice foliage scatter and branch cluster pattern. Don't cut them though as you end up with bits of bare nylon sticking out, pulling them out gives them a more natural look. I used superglue with an accelerator spray to get them to stay in place quickly, fiddly but well worth it.

The water on these sections is clear vinyl glued over the pre-painted and textured riverbed. The ripples were made by painting on fast-drying PVA wood glue and the shine on the banks where the stream is trickling down is made by using super-thin superglue dribbled down them, about 4 layers to build up the shine. The superglue mingles with the wet PVA resulting in the foamy look here, which can be stippled around with a stick or old brush to give a flowing effect.

 



 Hopefully they'll show off the minis well enough to get me some sales! If you're in the London area the show is dead cheap to get into and the gaming lineup looks brilliant, stop by and say hi!

Steampunks in Spaaaaace!

We had a jolly splendid time this weekend at the spiffing Steampunks in Space event at the National Space Centre. Having missed seeing our friend Thaddeus Tinker, Lady Elsie, Jack Union and the fabulous chaps and chapesses from Modiphius at the Asylum this year it was great to have a chance to catch up.

We were there with Tripods! which you might remember is out War of the Worlds themed board game. Tripey had a full makeover for the event, which was just as well, for we were confronted by the terrible sight of a full sized Tripod looming from the shadows!

We'll be at Dragonmeet this weekend with Tripods! and hopefully the first batch of castings from The Woods Kickstarter so if you're London way it'd be great to see you. And if not, you can still order Tripods! by following the links at The oakbound website. Perfect Christmas present for the discerning Steampunk, Board Gamer or Sci Fi fan. Ooooolaaaaaa!

Fimm McCool's- Swiftest rebuild in history!

And.... here's the new site. Yes it looks pretty much like the old one. We just picked it up and plonked it right down over here!

5 Days to go until switchover...

Just a reminder that if you're a follower of Fimm McCool's you might want to be on the alert that from the 1st December it will be moving URLs to  FimmMcCools.Blogspot.co.uk

Tripods attack Leicester!

It's all been a bit quiet on the Martian front lately...

No, not the Android's Dungeon game, the Oakbound Games board game Tripods! We took the game to the UK Games Expo back in April where it was very positively received despite being pipped to 'New Game of the Year' by Asmodee's "Splendour". That hasn't deterred us, since Asmodee themselves are now reviewing Tripods! with the possibility of becoming involved at some point in the future.

Well there are a few copies left from our original print run, and your last chance to pick one up may be coming up in the next few weeks. First up there's

STEAMPUNKS IN SPACE!
Leicester, National Space Centre
29-30th November

and then

DRAGONMEET
London, Earl's Court
6th December


If you can't make it to either but would like to know some more about this War of the Worlds boardgame you can find us on Facebook and at the Oakbound website.

Changes afoot for Fimm McCools... If you're a follower PLEASE NOTE!

It has been a few years now that Fimm McCools- formerly Fimm McCool's Games Orkshop has been running. About a year ago what was purely a hobby became a hobby/business with the creation of Oakbound Games- intended to be a way of making the hobby cash-neutral, doing some interesting things with our creations and working towards uniting small, independent games designers, sculptors, painters, and enthusiasts to create magic worlds of our own which couldn't be managed apart.


What with the commercial side becoming blurred with the hobby I want to be able to continue to post (in hopefully increasing amounts) on this blog with modelling, painting and gaming projects but also need to be able to reference the doings of Oakbound and other independents safely within it. For this reason I have decided that whilst 'Games Orkshop' was a funny play on the name of a former favourite company it is too close to keep whilst promoting other miniatures companies. Therefore


FROM THE BEGINNING OF DECEMBER FIMM MCCOOL'S WILL BE RELOCATING TO:


FimmMcCools.Blogspot.co.uk


The site isn't live at present, and hopefully this will just be a URL switch so all followers should be preserved, but any links to the blog will need updating from December 1st.


Thank you for your continued visits and I hope to see you all on the other side after the switch.


Fimm

Lost in the Oakbound woods part 3- Can't see the wood for the... paint?

Another Thursday, and my last clear day to work on the scenic slopes. Today's task- trees and shrubbery! Yes, shrubbery!

Plants had been causing me some problems. There are lots of ferns and the like on these slopes which give them quite a distinctive look, but to buy enough etched ferns to cover the slopes would be very expensive. I did laser cut a few from paper and have scattered a couple across the lower slopes, but I don't really like the look of them and they were taking ages to cut. They do give that nice semi-tropical look to the lower slopes though. In the end I settled on the combination above- green felt, pulled into strands and glued at the very top, then dragged down the slope to give fine fronds, and the tips of a fake Christmas tree branch. With the needles cut off I grabbed a selection (making sure they were the right way round) and stuck them in a dab of hot glue. I sprinkled some green flock onto the visible glue to accentuate the base of the plant (and hide the glue) and tweaked the fronds into a pleasing array.

 

Next I had the trees to deal with. I used a 1mm drill bit to drill into the twigs at appropriate intervals and insert paper clip branches. With this it's a combination of studying real trees to get the arrangement of the branches looking natural (for example- on these trees the branches tend to go in opposite directions at the same height, alternating side to side and front and back up the trunk) and going with what looks good on the miniature. The twigs also give you some knots and clefts to work with. I added a dab of PVA to the ends of the paperclips before sticking them into the holes to give them a secure base. Once this had dried I used Milliput to thicken out the branches. Not being too careful about getting it smooth or neat since the texture helps the look of it, but making sure the branches taper to the ends. Then I painted the trees with a grey-brown colour. This lighter tone helps distinguish them from the banks, I'll work over them in a lighter shade and some inks when I next have a chance. The branches are also not finished yet, I have a plan involving twine, super glue and more fake leaves for them!

 

 

So, getting nearly there. I need to do the water in the pools and waterfall, finish the trees and paint the MDF sides and backs to neaten it up. Oh, and finish the river modules to go in front. Just a bit more work then!

Horrors of the marshes! The nightmare of rebasing an army....

A restful sunday afternoon it has not been.

If you've never rebased models, my advice is don't! There's very little of my Fimir army that hasn't been snapped, chipped, bent, dropped, lost or otherwise damaged in the process. Weapons have come off, in one case a head has been lost somewhere, having to cut the integral bases off the Warlord miniatures celts lead to some nice wading-through-the-swamp poses, but also a lot of broken swords and spears. The HQ Fimir I chopped off their HQ bases to mount on 25mm bases it appears were thus mounted rather well, many of them lost toes in the process of relocating them on their new bases. The legs of a couple of the large Citadel Fimir have suffered chipped paintwork where ankles have net getting them off their old bases and several more metal figures will need touching up after the super glue proved to be not so super and fell off their new mounts.

Nevertheless.... the army is rebased. Well, most of it. There are two units of Fimm which are based but not in these photos and I haven't based up the stuff that's not painted yet. Plus I haven't added the detail yet, just a general ground cover made of flock, architect's model grass and static grass. I've got some shrubs, rocks and things to make them look more interesting.

 

 

Now a lot of people have been asking about the clear bases. Well chaps, they're just regular clear acrylic- Perspex to use a brand name- that's readily available from most DIY shops. Chopped them to size with a band saw. The trims I'm afraid I laser cut. I wasn't about to cut oodles of fiddly frames by hand, and they'd most likely have split anyway, a fair few did even with the laser. That does mean I have to sand off a;; the burn marks around the edges, but for the units that will be in movement trays the edges won't be on show anyhow so I might not bother. Also, not all the bases have acrylic set in. It's mostly character models and the edge models of units.

Once I've got the movement trays done... as I say, I have a good idea for them... and touched up all the chip/scratch/break I'll get some full army pics. Then it's a question of painting the last two chariots and two-dozen or so models to fill the army to its current planned capacity.

Was it worth all the swearing, cursing and carnage? Maybe... we'll see when it's all together!

Base instincts of the Fimir... Oooer!

If you've had a look through the Clan Myeri photos on the page above you'll have noticed that some of the basing is... incomplete? Rudimentary? Lacklustre?

Truth is, I haven't been sure how to base them up. I really want the look of these kinds of 'English' marshes:

 

Hopefully my gaming board will have this kind of look sometime as well, but how to achieve it? Well, I've had an idea.... Here's test piece one, Diego's excellent Not-Fimir warlord:



 Wooden edging, bits of flocking and some dried seed pod grasses.... but the real trick is:

 

 

...clear acrylic (Perspex) base! That means whatever surface he's put on will show through, but look like it's under shallow water. I've used the same technique for the rivers on my desert board and the river on my woods terrain but for some reason the thought never occurred to me to use it on the bases until now. I have actually tried it out on a unit of Fimm as well, photos to follow, and it looks good so I'm hoping to get everything I've got painted suitably based this weekend. Of course, everything that has movement trays will then need the tray under the bases to be suitably decorated- I have some good ideas for that...