Thread: Questioning chirine ba kal

Originally Posted by Shemek hiTankolel

That's brilliant! Thank you. I can't wait to see those lists.
I really like the look of Howard's miniatures. I just wish that I had learnt about them earlier. A lot of the ones I want don't seem to be available. However, he does have some Tsolyani troops still in stock, including some of the Glorious General's Own. I plan to pick up some of them, and some 1st Legion guys and use them to start rebuilding my Nchesh of the Splendid Slayers of Ssu. I used to use Assyrian troops (I think Ral Partha?) for my Pechani, but I have no idea where they ended up. Probably with some neighbour's kid
I recently fired off an email to Howard and he mentioned that the Legion of Red Devastation was the next lot that he was going to have available. I will get some of them for sure. I just wish he had some Yan Koryanis. The Crossbow troops look really good.
Those Crocodile Games and Dark Fable miniatures are great. That's something that is hard to get right: suitable "civilians".

Shemek

Agreed! He moved production from Eureka (Australia) to RAFM (Canada) due to the logistics. I'd look at Foundry Assyrians for your Pechani, myself. You can get them for reasonable prices, and you may be able to get the nice guys at Iron Wind to cast you up some of the Ral Partha Assyrians.

Howard's Yan Koryani are exquisite. You get three different helmets, three different armor styles, and both male and female troopers and officers. I have done both Gureks of Tleku Miriya, I and II, and they look great. We faced them at Castle Tiketl.

Agreed; and they're fun to paint, too!

Originally Posted by Shemek hiTankolel

Badump Bump!

Take my legion, please.

Like I say, we're here all week.

"Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends
We're so glad you could attend, come inside, come inside!"
-E,L,&P

Originally Posted by Gronan of Simmerya

For Polly S, do NOT use Isopropyl alcohol, but denatured ethanol. Sadly, isopropyl makes Polly S curdle, as my Federation Starships discovered to my sorrow.

And I'm going to go on a "Damn kids" rant now. Back in the early 80s we were mad for the FASA Star Trek starship combat game, and Chirine and I had a heap of the miniatures. We enlisted an artist friend to take the old AMT decal sheets and do up artwork for suitable decals in a scale for the minis, but never actually produced the decals because 3 color decals with registration precise enough (black, red, yellow) was prohibitively expensive.

Nowadays we could just scan it, shrink it, and use inkjet-compatible decal paper and Bob's yer uncle.

And I'll bet none of you little snots have ever had to paste up hunks of typeset using rubber cement, either. ("Somebody get the acetone, the Glorious General has webbed himself to the desk again.")(There's a reason I usually cast the figures instead of doing the pasteup.)

And git offa my lawn.

Yep. Important tip there, folks.

Ah, all those little Zocchi ships from the Franz Joseph "Technical Manual", and then the cast metal FASA ships. Oh, those were the days! Five- and ten-ought brushes, permanent inks, and you do not want to know about the belly paint on the Romulan Warbird. (Drove me nuts, it did.) Somebody actually make decals sets for all of these, and of course now FFG has done it all in prepainted poly / vinyl for you. No challenge left.

Stuff the damn rubber cement - remember the awful hot waxer that we had at AGI? Arneson was so happy to have it, as all the 'professionals' used one; he never touched it; I did get a lot of nice burns, though.

These kids, these days. Never suffered for their art, I'll betcha...

Originally Posted by Shemek hiTankolel

Been there, done that. I got so pissed off that the battle mech I was painting somehow managed to become embedded into the nearest wall:hmm: Who would have known that a Battlemaster was so aerodynamic?

What areodynamics? It's the weight of the lead that give it the range and penetration.

Use Simple Green, if you can still find it. A bath of this product will remove any paint from any model, and ill not harm either metal or plastic. Works like a charm; I get the gallon jugs from Home Depot, 'cause I is lazy.

Originally Posted by Shemek hiTankolel

Just out of curiosity, are there any North American distributors for these guys? I took a quick peek on their website and they look really good. My experience with purchases from the UK has been super long waits, and mucho $$$.

Well, I'd ask around in the HMGS, or ask Sentry Box in Calgary; if they don't have some, you'll have to be patient.

And, he offered, you could always nose about the historicals people to see if anybody is getting rid of an Assyrian army. For that matter, look around the GW aftermarket for the older Elves, which tend to have the tall pointed helmets and look really good with different shields - Howard now has a line of shields that are just wonderful, by the way - and keep an eye open. I've seen a lot of older GW stuff go for next to nothing...

Originally Posted by Shemek hiTankolel

And don't get me started on scratch building. I was at my local hobby store today showing off a 1/35 KV2 I have just finished and one of the "lads" was shocked to hear that I actually didn't use any after market resin products, or photo etch. "Why did you do it like that? Why didn't you just buy some aftermarket stuff?" My friend and I just looked at each other. To each his own I guess.

Tell me about it. Let's face it - modeling Tekumel means that there's going to be a lot of scratch-building that's going to get done. I used to run big open games at the biggest local game shop, but there were a couple of incidents with the staff that really put me off.

One was one of the guys telling me that I needed to bring my work up to the standard of the GW 'Eavy Metal' crew, because the store wanted to use my games as a way to promote miniatures - which don't sell all that well, for them, as they are in a local market dominated by RPGs. Well, all right, I said, but you do know that the pictures you see in the GW magazines are usually by their professional and well-paid in-house crew? God as my witness, he didn't know that - he thought that it was done by 'local gamers', or something. I told them that I would be happy to paint to the GW standard, if I was getting GW rates. Never heard anything back about it.

Second 'Great Moment In Retailing' came when I was buying some Reaper Pathfinder figures for use as PCs in my campaign, and the nice young man behind the counter was kind enough to point out that the store was running an Officially Sanctioned And Authorized Pathfinder Tournament in the game area. I thought this was fine, but made the mistake of mentioning that I didn't play the game. The lad asked me why I was buying the miniatures, then? if I wasn't playing the game; the other bright young lad behind the counter, at the other register, told the first one that I was famous for not playing any games, which he said was pretty weird. I just stood there and looked at the two of them for a bit, and asked if they would simply ring up the purchase for me. I felt like I needed a letter from the shop's owner, who I know, allowing me to buy figures I like for a game that I don't play, so that I can use them in a game I do like.

The third 'Great Moment' came when I was standing next to the miniatures racks, and a guy shows his friend a pack of generic Sherman tanks. The friend says "We can't use those! They aren't made by the company that did the rules that we play!" These were, I gathered, not the Official, Authorized, Sanctioned Sherman tanks allowed in game play.

Scratch-building in gaming may just be extinct. I don't think I'd be allowed to use my Airfix models - let alone my Tamiya ones! - in a game, any more...