Super Mutants, Survivors, and a Campsite

It sounds like the start of an exciting battle report but I have plenty of finished work to show off instead. No more hobby navel gazing from me for a while as well. I appreciate all of the support and advice you all have shared in the last couple months as I’ve been charting a new direction for the site. As you might have seen, I’m slowly rebranding the site. Those of you who use the WordPress reader might not notice much of a difference but I switched up the site’s design a bit to make it a little more visually appealing as well. But enough about that, let’s look at some minis and terrain!

I got my second “real” super mutant done and this one had a lot of armor to weather.  I wish that I had taken a picture before the rust as I did a really good job smoothly blending the armor which is now mostly covered up.  While this mutant does look quite as cool sculpt wise as the previous one, he doesn’t have a flimsy nail board that is almost definitely going to break off if that mini ever gets knocked off the table so that is a big plus.  I am pretty happy with how this guy turned out and I really like the mailbox on the base.  It looks pretty sharp if I do say so myself.  I need one more super mutant painted up in this style and I’ll have everything I need to play Fallout miniature wise so that will be a nice thing to check off my to-do list.

Next up, I got Ronnie Shaw done.  She looks kind of simple compared to the other survivors I painted but that belies how badass of a character she is in Fallout 4.  She is this kind of middle aged, tough lady who carries a big gun and is as brave as anyone in that game.  Unfortunately, This particular mini was easily the worst sculpt I’ve gotten from Modiphius.  It had those reverse mold lines where there is a valley on the sides of the model instead of the typical ridge sticking out.  Those are the absolute worst to fix and are a big reason why people hate finecast aka failcast by Games Workshop.  I’m proud that I was able to fix these issues with milliput well enough that you can’t really tell and ol’ Ronnie looks as she should, ready to lead the survivors (and Minutemen, more specifically) into battle.

Finally, I got another piece of terrain done and this is my favorite yet.  I saw a resin Camping Accessory set from TTCombat and saw someone use it effectively for Walking Dead on Lead Adventure so I figured I could do the same.  I am just now realizing that I meant to weather the tent and completely forgot about but with how the backside looks where the tent almost looks damaged, I think I can probably live without the weathering.  I tried to maximize playability while still making this look like a camp where people are residing.  I think the way I mixed the tufts looks pretty realistic too so this was a success all around.  I think this piece of terrain will mostly be relegated to the edges of the board as it isn’t really something for anyone to fight over.  It will hopefully be a nice accent piece that helps set the mood. I’m going to keep trying to churn out terrain in the coming weeks so I can get some Fallout games going. I figure if I sprinkle it in with the painting I’ve been doing, it should keep it manageable.

Lastly, I solved a storage issue I have and while it is not a lack of overall space, I think it is worth sharing for anyone who owns metal miniatures. Most of my miniatures are stored in the GW case pictured above and it has been working for me for the most part but there is an issue with it.  GW advertises their cases as sturdy cases that can handle whatever miniatures you throw at it but that is not true for MESBG as it turns out.  Metal miniatures are too heavy for the foam, which while the tray liners are cool looking and pretty flexible, they’re not not attached to the base.  When you add that the base it is a soft foam which can’t support much weight too, you’ve got a mess on your hands every time you lift the case out because metal miniatures slip under the foam and fall everywhere.  You end having to basically put everything back in its place each time you remove it from the hard case which is not cool at all.

There are lots of case options out there and while the magnetic ones are enticing, they are expensive and require extra work.  Fallout minis can’t be magnetized too so that wouldn’t solve my problems.  Other brands like Battlefoam seem great for Warhammer but they have no designs for MESBG so I was looking for something simpler, a case that can handle a number of metal miniatures is all I wanted.  Fortunately, I found PirateLab, which surprisingly is located about 20 minutes away from me in Evanston, and they make exactly that.  The foam tray pictured above can hold almost 60 miniatures and all of the metal LOTR ones I own are in there for that picture and it all works perfectly.  I would imagine that shipping is a bit pricey for those of you outside of the US but I can certainly recommend them for making a high-quality product with very affordable foam. I can now store many of my Fallout minis in the GW case so it is a win-win and clears off a lot of nicely painted miniatures off my hobby table that were in danger of being accidentally damaged so this is a great problem not to worry about.

That’s it from me for another week.  I think we may have a fantasy themed update coming up so I look forward to changing things up a bit next time!