Poseidon, Neptune, or bloke with a bent trident?

 

I figured the WizKids Fountain would be quite quick to paint up so it jumped up the painting queue a little!

I hit it with a Citadel Nuln Oil wash with a drop of Vallejo Thinner Medium - this seemed to work pretty well and I'm happy enough with the outcome (given the impossible-to-fix trident and the weird squashed bits of the sculpt).

I still can't recommend this range - but at least I've got a usable scenery piece for a variety of games.

WizKids Deep Cuts - Fountain

 

So, as you may have seen, I picked up a second WizKids Deep Cuts piece - this time it was the Fountain:

As standard with this range it is allegedly primed and 'paint ready out of the box'... Well, again let's have a little look:

Well that trident is rather wonky and needs a hot water bend to look at least less bad (don't think it'll ever be quite right).  The rims of the water bowls (there's probably a technical name!) also have a squashed bit you can make out - it's not the worst but it definitely isn't round.  Finally, the pedestal that has been attached to the base isn't straight (not that evident in this picture but it was noticeable as I handled the piece).  But then, as it turns out it hadn't been assembled properly anyway and the pedestal wasn't glued to the base:

(and you can see how the trident is extra wonky from this angle too).  Well, it turns out this wasn't properly attached because some extra plastic was left in the hole in the water effect - I managed to clip it out and have reglued this together which has helped.

I like the design and think it'll be useful for all sorts of games  - Carnevale, Gangs of Rome, Broken Legions and Mortal Gods come to mind in particular. But, and it's a big but, for a product that is sold as ready to go out of the packet this certainly doesn't hit that mark.  I am very unlikely to buy any other WizKids products in the future (never say never though eh?) and based on my experiences I cannot recommend them to other wargamers. Caveat Emptor!

Sarissa Precision - Streets of Rome Planter Set

You might remember me posting about an order with Arcane Scenery and Models which included the Sarissa Precision Planter Set from their Streets of Rome range - well, I've assembled and painted them and, I have to say, they are really nice pieces of scatter terrain!

The pack includes 12 planters in different sizes and shapes - they are easy to assemble.  You can make them up so they are either full or empty - as I wanted mine to include plants I made them to be full.  I used my usual basing sand dip to give an soil texture inside the planters before priming them.

I painted them white to keep them as versatile as possible - whilst designed for Gangs of Rome these will also work for Mortal Gods, Broken Legions, Carnevale and wouldn't look out of place in Infinity either.

I added some blue flower tufts that I picked up on a special offer from Serious-Play on a whim - I didn't have a plan for them at the time, but I think they look rather nice in these planters!

To give you an idea of size - here's one next to a random 28mm Warlord Games Samurai I had to hand:

The pack also includes a couple of larger hexagonal planters - perfect for trees.  I bought a pack of Sakura trees a while ago with plans for my Neo-Shinjuku collection - but had some spare and thought they'd look good in these planters:

I had some Sakura scatter that didn't get used on another project (went a different direction, you know how it is!) but thought these could do with a little something to break up the soil around the trees. I think it works alright even though it's slightly different pinks to the trees themselves.

In all - I really like these planters - they provide an interesting scenery option that's a lot more engaging and colourful than just boxes or barrels.  I highly recommend this kit if you play any games with settings that they'd work with.

Statues of Forgotten Generals Part 2

Long-time readers might remember a post from last year about some scenery pieces I had planned for use primarily in Gangs of Rome (but will be handy for Broken Legions and Carnevale too!) - Statues of Forgotten Generals.

Well, I finally got round to assembling and painting them - nothing too fancy, just to represent marble statues on the tabletop and give gang members something to hide behind!

First, the cavalry statue:

And the infantry statue:

I'm pretty happy with how they turned out - the plinths were easy to assemble (for my first time faffing about with MDF scenery) and I think the miniatures work well enough as statues of some forgotten general or another!

Thessalus and Tisiphone

I've got a little stash of Gangs of Rome stuff to work through - but there were a couple of gaps in the collection that I wanted to plug.  I found them available from Board in Brum online for a good price so took the opportunity to round out our Gangs of Rome collection for now.

First up, Thessalus the Back Street Healer - a rather sketchy Incola.  Not sure I'd trust this chap to patch me up!

I also grabbed Tisiphone - she's a special named fighter for inclusion in a gang.  I think it's a fun sculpt without being over the top - and actually have a second that will be used in Broken Legions as an Oracle in The Argonauts:

Statues of Forgotten Generals

I felt that statues would be a good addition to the terrain collection - the classic statue would work well for games like Gangs of Rome, Broken Legions and Carnevale after all.  I picked up the Sarissa statue plinths kit (part of the Gangs of Rome line):

Of course, can't really have plinths without statuary! From the same seller I had a browse of their Hail Caesar stock and came across a keenly priced blister:

These Roman Officers should work well - the foot officer will go on the smaller of the plinths, while the cavalry officer should look good on the longer plinth.

TTCombat Streets of Venice

I picked up a really good deal on a Carnevale starter set (with extras) and while it comes with street/canal tiles and lots of awesome buildings - and even a gondola! - I knew I'd want some additional scatter terrain to add some life to the table.

Well, it's no surprise that TTCombat have a range dedicated to support their re-release of Carnevale, so I picked up some of their resin packs to add to the collection.

First up, a set of 3 Round Wells:

Two are whole and capped off, the third is broken (asking for a little water effect I guess!).  I think I can probably use these in Gangs of Rome and Broken Legions too.

I also picked up a set of Barrels:

Containing 12 barrels of various sizes, this will come in handy for all sorts of games - pretty much anything fantasy (Burrows & Badgers, Dragon Rampant, Mordheim, Frostgrave), historical (En Garde!, Outremer, TPL, Gangs of Rome) or both (Broken Legions) can make use of these versatile little pieces.

I thought it would be good to add to the Gondola that came in the Carnevale pack for some water-based scenery.  I got the Noble Gondola:

As well as an ornate Gondola (including cushions!) the pack includes three gondola poles to add to the canals for games of Carnevale.

I spotted the Floating Detritus pack and couldn't resist:

The pack includes 14 pieces - from small barrels to collections of wooden junk.  They are all sculpted to look as thought they are floating on the canals of Venice (or the waters of Port Royal).

While finalising my order I came across the Wood Scaffolding MDF kit:

These will help provide routes up to building roof tops in Carnevale, but will also work well for Gangs of Rome in particular.

Gangs of Rome - getting started

OK, so I'm a little late to the party with this one - but when I found the Blood on the Aventine set for a really good price it was kind of a no-brainer:

6 single-piece gang fighters, an NPC guy, all the gubbins you need to play (including rulebook obviously) and a rather awesome 'temple under construction' scenery piece by Sarissa Precision.  This alone was almost worth the price of entry - it'll certainly be used for Broken Legions as well as Gangs of Rome, and possible even Of Gods and Mortals should I ever go that route.  Here's the official pic of the piece when made up and painted:

I won't lie, it's pretty intimidating!

So, here are the gang fighters that come in the starter set - first up the women:

And now the men:

I didn't like the guy with the Scissor gladiator weapon so while I have him made up I decided he didn't deserve to be in the picture.

Here's Talavus the Gaul, a special Incola (special character citizens of Rome that your gangs can interact with in some way in game - in this case he'll attack you with roof tiles):

While this would allow us to play the game I thought we needed to get up to the 5 gang members per side size.  I found an independent seller that was having a clear out of their GoR stock (lucky for me!) so picked up enough to add to the men and women above.

Here's the two fighters that will be joining my gang:

I like to think of the female fighter as a pychotic chef.  Each fighter comes in a blister with their unique card, item cards (and denarii) and some head and arm options - I tried to pick the coolest looking head/weapon combos for all of these multi-piece minis.

Next up are three female gang fighters that will join the Wife's gang.  There's a cool piece of background text in the rulebook about an all-female gang that was just too cool not to emulate a little on table:

Axe, mallet and sword/rock-for-braining combo... pretty gnarly stuff!

A cool and unique (well, it's the first game I've come across that uses it as a mechanic) part of Gangs of Rome is the Mob.  These represent the living nature of Rome as a bustling city.  I picked up one of the Mob packs from the seller I got the fighters from:

These will even come in useful as NPCs in Broken Legions - I do like getting multiple use out of my minis! 

I think I'd like another Mob or two, some of the other Incola models and at least a little more scenery (seeing as it can be used for Broken Legions too!), but this is certainly enough to be cracking on with in the meantime!