Tag Archives: miniatures

Minis Workshop (Oct 2022)

Posted on by tjkopena

Last week Matt L, Julien B, and I led the first of a planned monthly Miniatures Workshop at Redcap’s. We had very solid attendance with at least 15 people there for the whole night, and handfuls of people floating in & out over time from other areas of the shop.

Joe talking at length about different kinds of miniatures and basic preparation.

First segment I did a long impromptu talk about how different types of miniatures are made, various materials and their properties, how to prep them, basic adhesives & assembly, and getting ready to paint.

Second stretch, Matt took about half the people and went around the group just getting introductions and quick discussion on what people wanted to work on/play. Julien and I each took a group of people who’d more or less never assembled miniatures and we put some together. A few people brought their own, for the others I had a stack of old Genestealer and Space Marine sprues to give out.

Third part I took a totally novice group to talk about priming, different kinds of paints (acrylic, GW Contrast, etc), and then we all spray primed models. A bunch of people had never used a spray can before. A group who’d already begun their painting journey split off with Matt to talk fundamentals—kinds of brushes, caring for brushes, brush control, loading brushes, etc.. Suffice to say, Matt like to talk about brushes… Julien floated around talking to people about their specific projects.

Matt talking about brush and paint basics.

Julien coaching people on assembly and repair.

My brother and I assembling genestealers.

By the end a lot of people had made new acquaintances and were deep into hobby talk. At least one person was super stoked about the Genestealer they’d assembled and primed. Next month we’ll push more into actual painting on-site.

Infinity Spring League: Rnd 1

Posted on by tjkopena

Toward the start of the game.

Played my first game as Druze Bayram Security on Friday, in my Infinity league match against Lovell. It was fun playing something different after fielding solely Shock Army the past 9 months. On the downside, I was busier than expected last week and barely prepped models—the last one I needed got glued to its base literally the moment Lovell arrived. I haven’t fielded unpainted models in a long time, and gave up a lot of soft points for it.

Partly to limit prep time and partly for awesome, I took an Anaconda backed by a Druze & Brawler fireteam, plus cheap bots for orders and domination points. Lovell did pretty much the same thing with his Spiral Corps, creating a Kiel-Saan versus Anaconda slugfest. I played first and was able to use the terrain to alternate between the Anaconda and the Druze team taking down targets threatening the other as they moved up board. I got a little too cautious in the final showdown with the Kiel-Saan and didn’t move units far enough up to reach Lovell’s DZ, but still claimed a Druze victory.

Other thoughts:

  • I don’t usually think much of one point upgrades, but Fatality 1 (both the Druze Shock Teams and the Anaconda TAG have this) mattered a bunch of times. A Combi-Rifle in a fireteam with an X-Visor and Fatality 1 is a very good weapon on RECON+ boards.
  • However, it’s tough to make good RECON+ lists with Druze. They don’t have enough cheap options to generate orders. Military Orders is probably in the same spot now that they don’t have Fusiliers.
  • One criteria for evaluating and guiding terrain setup that often gets overlooked but is especially important in domination missions is ensuring there are paths for 40mm and 55mm bases to move around.
  • The game was a good reminder that HI and TAGs are tough, but not that tough. They still can’t stand in the open without getting quickly whittled down even by small arms, which the Kiel-Saan was reminded of forcefully.

Always fun playing Lovell, and I was pumped to finally get Druze on the table after they’d been sitting on my shelf for sixteen months… Looking forward to prepping more models for Round 2!

List for Round 1.