It has been a real change of pace this week after all the excitement and intensity of the Blood Elf project. First, I’d like to show off what I finished this week which is fairly modest, I think.
That’s right. I’ve given up on wargaming and now I’m a model railroad enthusiast! Well, maybe not, but I will be doing some work on railroad-inspired terrain for my Fallout collection. This railroad signal came together nicely and I didn’t make any major assembling/gluing mistakes for once. I think the weathering looks nice as well and should fit right in with the rest of the stuff I have. Technically, this is the piece of terrain I wanted to build for my next Fallout game but it is going to take me a while to play as I need to get a new table to game on for my room. It will need to be a folding table so I can stash it away when I’m not using it as I don’t want to hijack the kitchen table as I used to in my old apartment. Buying a table isn’t a top priority as there are so many other things needed to get the condo “finished” but I will be looking forward to getting a game in when I can. The railroad signal will be my first piece for Dave Stone’s Apocalypse Me challenge going on this month. I should have at least one more piece of terrain done before the month’s up but maybe even more, we shall see!
And now for some rapid-fire and random thoughts!
- To try and treat myself on my birthday, I played Fallout: The Board Game for the first time. Truthfully, I didn’t finish the game and had really mixed feelings afterwards so I watched a video of someone playing (first time I’ve done that before, I think) and discovered I made tons of rule mistakes and basically was playing things so wrongly that I didn’t really get a good feel for the game. I don’t know how this happened considering I read the rules manual but alas, it did. I’ll give this one another go sometime soon and report back. Hopefully, next time is the charm!
- I also learned that board games have different card sleeves not just for mini cards but for regular cards too. The good news is that I bought some really nice Dragon Shield sleeves to use in the future but the bad news is that I then had to buy actual board game sleeves because Dragon Shield are for card games like Arkham Horror: The Card Game. What a rookie mistake!
- Speaking of my birthday, I received some lovely gifts including what is pictured below:
An expansion to the Hellboy Board Game which is based on one of my favorite Hellboy comics. I look forward to painting it up and playing it.
Some Fallout reinforcements are coming to the tabletop soon thanks to my brother’s generosity!
- Last but not least, I received the Star Wars: Complete Locations book which has cross-sections of famous locales in Star Wars. This is all Dave Stone’s fault because he made an amazing version of Jabba’s Palace which is extremely cool and inspirational. While following his work on that project, I got all kinds of Star Wars nostalgia and while I have zero sculpting skills, I would like to take on a Star Wars project or two so that is something to look forward to down the road.
- Don’t you hate it when you’re eager to start a new project only to realize that you are missing a paint or some other hobby supply that you need? I spent a few quid on tufts to finish the Blood Elf only to find that I need paint and basing paste, among other things to get other projects going. It has been limiting my options with what I can paint this week and actually finish which is aggravating.
- Have you ever built MDF buildings that fit so tightly that they almost don’t need glue? I was test fitting some future terrain because I was thinking I should prime it while the weather’s good and I could barely get the pieces back apart. I have a feeling priming MDF terrain that fits that tightly is a bad idea so I’ll probably skip that even if I liked how much faster it made painting the railroad signal. At least it won’t need much glue to stay together!
- I can’t say the pandemic isn’t still negatively impacting my life. I haven’t been able to get a new Playstation 4 controller for almost two months now and to add insult to injury, I tried to buy a new Nintendo Switch console that was coming out this week and no dice. I’ve never seen it be so hard to buy things that I wanted as it has been during the pandemic. These are strange times indeed.
- I’m going to try tagging whatever the miniature, game, or terrain piece in each new post’s title to make it a little easier to identify the contents at a glance. I think people who stumble across this site who are interested in a particular game or project will find this helpful. It might make the website a little more attractive to people using Google and looking for things too which is not a bad thing either.
- I’m sure I could keep writing more but I’ll leave it here and hopefully be back with a bit more painting progress next week!
Kuribo's Painting 
Nice stream of consciousness blog post! I can see we have a variety of topics to follow in the coming months, looking forward to what ever direction it goes.
LikeLiked by 4 people
Thanks! I figured I’d mix things up since I no longer have one thing to talk about. What I paint or finish each week could be a bit of a surprise to me too which hopefully makes for decent reading.
LikeLike
Nice work on the signal and belated happy birthday. Looks to me like you did well! 🙂
LikeLiked by 4 people
Thank you, TIM! I certainly can’t complain about my family generosity. I look forward to seeing more of your comments on Wudu and IRO’s posts. They’ve been making me chuckle thus far 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Sorry to hear the Fallout boardgame was a bit of a miss, I hope it gets better for you. As always I am keen to see you paint more Fallout minis to go with that railroad signal.
LikeLiked by 3 people
In this case, I think it was my fault that it didn’t go well so I’ll probably try and give it another go this week and see if that doesn’t improve the situation. I’ve been eyeing the rest of The Institute minis that I have so you may very well see The Railroad’s arch-enemies soon enough!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Great work on the railroad signal, the weathering looks spot on Jeff, Looks like you had a great birthday, and received lot’s of new bits to paint and inspire ( sorry about sending you down the Star Wars rabbit hole). Hope when you try the fallout game again, you enjoy it, and you can find the products you’re looking for.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Cheers, Dave! No apologies needed for the inspiration 🙂 I was probably lucky to only “spend” $20 on Star Wars as you can spend an infinite money about it, if you’re so inclined. I’m going to try and give Fallout another go during this week and report back. Fingers crossed!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nice bit of scenery there, Jeff, nice birthday haul and some interesting thoughts. 🙂 I can help you prioritise things – GET A FOLDAWAY TABLE AS A PRIORITY!! If you’ve got that, you can play Fallout and not worry about not being able to get other game console bits! You know you want to!
LikeLiked by 3 people
Thanks for the kind words as always, John! I do have to say though, any brownie points you accrued with my wife are now gone after this comment 😉 I certainly do want a table as I can’t even take proper terrain pictures (with the mat and all of that) without a table). Truthfully, I do really want to get another game of Fallout in, but I’m using the table as a way of pushing myself to get more terrain done first. Otherwise, I know I’ll complain about how I barely got any terrain done since the last time I played and that the board looks too similar to the last game 😀
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nice work on the railway signal and I can’t wait to see those Fallout minis painted!
LikeLiked by 3 people
Thanks, mate! Between the Hellboy-Cthulhu inspired minis and Fallout minis and terrain, I hope to cover most of your hobbying interests. Speaking of which, between the two of us, we should just about have a post-apocalyptic paradise with minis and terrain ready to go 😀
LikeLiked by 2 people
I like the signal mate it should work well. The Star Wars book sounds awesome! Also, I’m not sure if you follow him already but you might like this dudes page – https://34thtribeofthevault.wordpress.com/
LikeLiked by 4 people
Thanks, mate and you can’t go too far wrong with Star Wars (at least if you avoid The Last Jedi!)! I do follow his work and I’m glad to not be the only person messing around with Fallout Wasteland Warfare. Thanks for recommending it all the same though. That is very kind of you!
LikeLiked by 2 people
The more I watch the Last Jedi the more I warm to it… a little. Don’t get me wrong, it’s the weakest link in the whole saga but there are some good bits to it. I just think the vision was a bit too off target. I have another recommendation for you. Star Wars sessions podcast. Absolutely brilliant
LikeLiked by 2 people
I don’t know if I can ever go back to that movie but I agree that vision was off target. I think if the movie was anything other than Star Wars, I might have enjoyed it. I’ll give it a listen! I’ve kind of been wanting a good Star Wars podcast to listen to and never found much. Thanks, mate!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nice looking Birthday loot. Seems people know what you like.
I think there is an attraction to model trains; the attention to detail and the terrain making could be a big draw for me. Plus one doesn’t paint miniatures in model railroading. I just never understood what one does with a finished railroad.
The signal tower looks pretty cool. How tall is it?
LikeLiked by 1 person
My family basically buys me whatever I ask for so I’m probably really lucky in that regard haha! No painting miniatures would be a downside for me but if you like terrain and building something on a large scale, its hard to beat model railroading as a hobby. I’m pretty sure that model railroaders build a display, then sell it off or tear it down and start over. I have more room now but I don’t really have enough space that I could ever have more than a modest train display and so I’m sticking with wargaming for now, but maybe one day I’ll give it a whirl.
To answer your real question, the signal tower is about six inches tall. I think it is pretty much to scale for 28mm-32mm as well.
LikeLike
A little late, but Happy Birthday!
I’d like to hear more about Fallout: The Board game, once you get it back to the table. I’ve heard mixed reviews, but I still like the look of it.
I’d also like to here what you think about Hellboy, as twice now I’ve almost bought it but changed my mind at the last minute.
You might find this useful, a link to a BGG geeklist that has sleeve sizes for every game…https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/164572, though I don’t usually sleeve my cards, I refer to it all the time to include the sizes in my reviews.
I’ve been after a PS5 (missing out the 4, at least that’s the plan), but it looks like Santa isn’t going to be coming down the chimney carrying one this year… Boo! Hoo!
I like the random thoughts at the end… I might have to steal that idea!😉
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks, mate! You’re in luck because I played Fallout this very evening. I got the rules right (or more right this time anyway!) and I had fun even though I lost. I think the game is good and was worth hunting down now, thankfully but I may talk a bit more about how it went in my next post. I do think it is a good game if you can snag a copy of Atomic Bonds is the short version of my opinion.
I will definitely let you know on Hellboy too. I messed around with it a while back and played part of a scenario and I definitely liked it. The few turns I played convinced me that it is a very competent dungeon crawler and very cooperative. I’m going to work on painting minis for it soonish so you’ll be seeing plenty more about it in the coming days 🙂
A PS5 looks to be challenging to get this holiday season to me too. A PS4 does have a lot of great games if you have to settle.
And finally, steal away! I’m happy to inspire or help others 😀
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’ll be looking forward to reading about Fallout, thanks Jeff.
Hellboy has certainly got my attention, and I’m annoyed, as I saw it for a really good price at the Expo last year and by the time I’d decided to go for it, it had gone!
I was originally going to get a 4, but then the 5 came out and we thought we’d go for that, but it isn’t turning out to be so easy. I suppose the fact that the 5 can play 4 games makes upgrading later a good option. It’s a pity the 4 can’t play the 3’s games as I’ve got a couple of shelves full!
LikeLiked by 2 people
I’ll try to make the wait worth it as best I can! What I would say about Hellboy is that the Kickstarter version is far superior to the retail version (which you’ve probably heard already) and if you can get a Kickstarter version, I think you’ll like what you get a lot more. There just isn’t a huge enemy variety in the retail game alone.
I know what you mean about backwards compatibility. The PS3 had it for PS2 and I think Sony felt like it was too good of a thing and has avoided doing it since then. It is so handy when a console can do that and can save you from having to buy quite as many but alas, video game manufacturers need to make a buck too as it turns out!
LikeLiked by 2 people
Yeah, it was the kickstarter version I had the chance of buying, so kicking myself now!
It would be nice to own the latest PS, as I’m always at least one behind the current version, but maybe the 4 is the way to go. We shall see what The old boy wearing red brings Yasmin (It really is for her, honest!).
LikeLiked by 1 person
Happy (belated) birthday mate! Great looking rail signal – it’s going to be great to see all the railway scenery put together when you’re done with them all (and have added the ballast!) 😉
Surprising to see that something like a PS4 controller is hard to come by – they’re still readily available here – unlike the actual PS5 or Series X. Having said that, I’ve barely turned my PS4 on in the last year, but if sometime in the future you want to set up an online gaming session, I’d be up for it.
I know that they recently offered a lot of the original HB KS content in the PM for Hellboy 2. You might be able to get them to open it up for a late pledge if you email Mantic politely. 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks, mate! I’m excited for it too. Building a railway “board” shouldn’t take up a lot of room but will look impressive when its done or so I hope! 🙂
Please send me a PS4 controller, mate! I can’t figure out why they haven’t come back in stock in the US after months now. I don’t have PSPlus to play online games because I rarely play them, but I would be happy to play online with you at some point. Are you on Steam or do any PC gaming at all? To be honest, I mostly play LOTRO currently but it’d be fun to get a game in for sure!
I don’t know if I actually talked about it on here but I got a pledge in on Gamefound and while I still need to grab some expansions (Hellboy in Mexico and Darkness Calls), I’ll get all of the new ones coming out next year and a couple rare pieces like Johann in spectral form. I’m excited for it and look forward to playing the game soonish too! 😀
LikeLike
You say that *now* but once you get onto the rolling stock and freight cars… 😉
That’s crazy on the controllers! No problem getting them here
https://www.jbhifi.com.au/products/ps4-playstation-4-dualshock-4-wireless-controller-black
I fear though our prices are amongst the worst in the world, and postage is pretty expensive as well. These guys in the UK might work, though – I know they ship to AU.
https://www.365games.co.uk/search/ps4+controller
I used to mainly play the PS4, and with multiple systems in the house we had to have PS+ for multiplayer and co-op – luckily you can share it with a simple (non-dodgy) workaround. Now we’re mostly playing on XBox. I am on Steam, though I haven’t played much PC stuff for awhile. We used to play LotRO as well back in the day. Lifetime subs! We stopped playing around the Rohan expansion – it was a lovely looking game, but it mostly just made me want to play WoW again as the combat was a bit too slow. I saw recently they’re about to shut down a server and if you miss out on logging on for the transfer they’re simply going to out and out delete people’s characters. Insanity!
LikeLiked by 1 person
It is going to take a while to put together all the terrain as I’ve learned too! I actually did get a PS4 controller recently so that problem is solved. The new game I wanted to play didn’t grab me so I’m back to playing LOTRO on the weekends and Pinball FX3 on Steam during the week to get all the achievements I can. LOTRO is a bit slow-paced and these days it is a pretty old game but I’ve enjoyed it. My brother and I are level 50 and getting close to going to Moria. Its hard to believe that there are 140 levels in the game. I’m sure the time commitment to hit max level keeps some people away from the game. Well that and some of the issues like with the server you mentioned above!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Moria wasn’t too bad at all from memory – we had some fun times there back in the day. Not sure if they’d have changed it by now, but it was a fun place to spend a bit of time. Unfortunately they did the MMO thing and so all the time and effort spent grinding things in there became junk as the game moved to the next expansion area.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Not much in LOTRO has changed other than it being a bit easier to level since there are so many levels in the game. The quests and things like that are basically the same which is good because that is the fun part of the game I’d say. I hear you on grinding for gear only for it to become outdated. I loved WoW until I hit max level (60?) and realized the only things to do in the game to improve required tons of grinding. I hated how the most way to get better gear, PvP in battlegrounds or arenas or whatever they’re called, mostly ended up in me getting crushed because I didn’t have good armor which was the whole thing I was trying to get in the first place!
LikeLike
Somehow it didn’t end up bothering me in WoW. Probabaly because I tended to grind for mounts and stuff that would end up being cool looking trnasmog outfits, or the fact that it tended to be pretty easy due to the pleasantness of WoW’s game loop. One thing i can definitely say about LotRO was how beautiful the game looked. Maybe I’ll try and find my old emails to take a look again, though it’d pretty much be as a tourist – too many other games to play these days without diving (back) into another MMO!
LikeLiked by 1 person
You were in good company as WoW has been wildly popular and I’m an outlier on not really liking it. The nice thing about LOTRO is that you can play it without having to subscribe monthly, especially if you own a lot of the content already. I am a subscriber because the benefits make it worth it but it is an MMO you can dabble in very easily. If you decide to jump in for a session or two, let me know and we can meet up in-game sometime 🙂 I’m on Brandywine in the event that you do play.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yeah, I played WoW on release (Beta, actually) and migrated there from EverQuest which I’d played previously. They did a hell of a lot right for a long time, but it’s not something that tends to keep my interest for more than about 4 months at a time anymore. I played a bit of the previous expansion during the final segment of it, which was the first time I’d played in quite a few years.
I dug up my LotRO account and after installing, found that my old server had been nuked. I was able to free-transfer my characters and stuff, but only had 2 server options, and it didn’t let me go to Brandywine, so that’s unfortunate. I’m on one that starts with B right now – can’t check since it’s on my PC and we have an Internet outage right now, so I’m using my phone data on a laptop. Didn’t get to log on since the migration was to take howevermany hours, and since it’s not Brandywine there’s really no impetus to actually log on…
LikeLiked by 1 person
I played EQII and liked it for a while and then quit for reasons I can’t remember anymore. Probably just some other game caught my attention. I did like quite a bit about that game as I recall.
Regardless, I just checked and I only see one other server that starts with a B that is a European server so I’m surprised they’d force people to pick that one and not a general server. I totally get what you’re saying about no impetus to log on. You can always make a level 1 character and say hello but I don’t know if that is worth your time/enough fun to actually follow through with. It is a shame that SSG doesn’t let people transfer to whatever server they want. I can’t imagine how that doesn’t benefit them and their player base.
LikeLike
Turns out my old characters are on Elendilmir, which has been shuttered. I attempted to transfer my stuff to Bullroarer, but it failed. I’ve been trying to figure it out and managed to transfer only 1 of my characters across as I keep getting “transfer failed” messages with the rest. Turbine were hardly the best people running the game, but clearly Daybreak are far, far worse at it…
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m sorry to hear that, mate. I haven’t tried to do any transfers but I can imagine that it is very clean. Standing Stone Games is a way smaller developer than what Turbine had several years ago so they’re pretty under resourced as you can probably imagine. With that said, I lost the character that I had on an old server so I feel your pain. I do think the early parts of the game like The Shire are a lot of fun so it wasn’t too much of a bother to start fresh when my brother and I started playing months ago now. With that said, its a long haul to get a max level character so I can see why someone wouldn’t be keen on that too.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Apparently characters on the shuttered servers are pretty much just in a limbo until (if) they ever figure out how to offer transfers. I can’t see myself ever restarting from scratch to be quite honest – I think my MMORPG days are pretty much solidly behind me now, given the sheer amount of time they absorb. It would have been something to jump on and muck around with (you guys) every so often as opposed to something to play “properly”.
I doubt we’re anywhere near whatever max level is these days, but we had gotten past Moria and Rivendell into the outskirts of Dunland/Rohan from memory – so not especially close to the start of the game either!
LikeLiked by 1 person
That is not great but I’m not surprised. I’ve heard complaints about character transfers and it isn’t hard to see why.
MMO’s do take tons of time. My brother and I only play together on the weekends for maybe a total of 3-5 hours each weekend and we’re finding it fun to chip away at the game slowly. We’re still in Moria at the moment and have quite a bit there to go. I can’t commit to doing lots of dungeons and raids timewise and I’m fine with just enjoying the process of questing and doing festivals and housing. If you ever do want to muck around with us once the character transfer thing improves, just let me know!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Will do! (if they ever fix it!)
LikeLiked by 1 person