Siamtigers Log-o-rama / Chaosbunker

[SiamTiger]

The editor in here is a bit tricky, if you want to post pre-formated content, but i'll try my best.

I am running my blog for several years now, and a few years ago i started blogging bilingual. Since 1.1.2016 its divided into two separated language versions.

Tabletop or Wargaming is for me more about the narrative parts and visual appeal, i don't care that much about rules or the efficiency of units, as more for their style / design. Beside wargaming i enjoy to cook, travel and photography.

About the cooking part, to have a "healthy" addition to your game nights, here is my recipe for homemade fried chicken;
http://www.chaosbunker.de/?p=9687&lang=en

I enjoy visiting several conventions and events, for example the german tabletop fleamarket Bitbox that i visited before my vacation;
http://www.chaosbunker.de/?p=9700&lang=en

During my vacation i stumbled upon the nice historical museum in Aurich, Lower Saxony, that i can only recommend.
http://www.chaosbunker.de/?p=9713&lang=en

And next up i am waiting for the Salute next week.
http://www.chaosbunker.de/?p=9648&lang=en

Oh, and despite other rumours, i enjoy painting and currently am working on some tanks, like this captured KV-2 for Bolt Action.



So i hope i figure out, how i post the articles directly in here, instead of just linking them

Have a nice sunday and see you next weekend at salute.

[SiamTiger]

Aradia Miniatures is a small miniature company from Italy. Their high class resin miniatures already caught my eye on some of the painting blogs around the web, and i had the chance to meet them at Scale Model Challenge.

In this review, i'll take a look at the Toad King. It is a resin miniature in 54mm scale. The toad king himself is roughly 60mm tall and costs 30 Euros.

"I知 the King of the mushrooms, I知 the King of the Sabba, CROAK! I知 the King of marsh, GOARK! Don稚 look into my eyes, CRROAK!, my glance is poisonous and my skin exudes a magical substance that you could need to prepare the unguent of the witches. GRAAAK! I知 the swampy King of pixies and fairies, I知 King that you should never encounter, I知 the Toad King. CROAK."

In the blister you'll find the tall torso including head as a single piece, and the smaller bits like the crown, right arm, left hand with weapon and the loin cloth in a ziplock bag. And a small piece of artwork / drawing of the character himself.

The cast is incredibly well done. No casting errors, air bubbles or similar, just very minor amount of flash. Due to the use of resin instead of pewter / lead or plastic, you can see the fine structure of the frog skin, with warts and bloated parts at neck and belly.

The fit is pretty good, no pinning was needed, but in case of the weapon i wanted to be safe. You don't really need to cover up the transitions between the parts, but i touched them up lightly with a bit of liquid putty.

The crown is optional if you do not want a toad king but a (high) warrior of the frog tribe. The loin cloth however is a bit less optional, and contains the kings crown jewels.

I prepared a small plinth for the king, using a wooden cube, a bit of cork and filler.

From different angles he looks like this.

If you're looking for beautiful painted versions of the toad king, you can check out the Toad King contest at the Aradia website or the post-apocalyptic interpretation at Massive Voodoo.

Conclusion

This miniature is a combination of Stefano Moronis artwork and the sculpt-craft by Allan Carrasco. 30 Euro might seem a steep price for a "wargamer", but you have to keep in mind, this is an larger than ogre-sized miniature, cast in a low volume production and highest expectations.

It is a very fine and artistic sculpt, that is a solid foundation for a showcase piece. A project that isn't just primed and washed, and
motivates do spend more time and work into details. In my opinion, the toad king is a good choice for a wargamer who wants to try out a more elaborate way of painting, as well for a skilled painter that is looking for a promising next project.

Link: Aradia Miniatures

[throwsFireball]

That is a damn nice miniature. Those are the guys that do the HUGE whale guy? I was considering using him for 28mm just because he'd be great.

You are very bad at linking to things, though. :p

[SiamTiger]

Ah, he dup'd the http into the links, fixed that.

[SiamTiger]

The captured KV2 / PzKpfw 754(r) is finished. I did final touches on the armour, and finished the tracks. After painting the colours, drybrush and wash, i added homemade mud-paste and model gras.

I added the flag for iff (identification friend or foe) from air, but scrunched it, as i didnt want an actual swastika on the tank. Quite happy with the reds of the flag and how the whole tank turned out. Its a KV2 by Warlord Games, casted in their new resin formula and very pleasant to build.

After "a few" people (among them me) suggested that there is a real need for some papertank and prototypes from World War 2 in 1:56 / 28mm, one of the most anticipated pieces is here - the Panther F Schmalturm. Heer46 released it, and i am going to go into detail with this one, in an additional article / review. I put it on a Rubicon Models Panther G and converted a few bits here and there, among the improvised side-skirt pieces.

Next projects are the Ersatz-Panther M10 from Operation Greif and a captured KV1 / PzKpfw 753(r), both by Warlord Games. The Panther M10 has tracks mounted on the sides of the armour, unfortunately small parts of the cast were broken off, so i replaced them with plastic spare tracks from the Rubicon Panther G along with the gun, as the original metal one was a bit tricky to pin.

Both tanks were primed in black and got a solid coat of Army Painter white matt primer on top. As written in the paint-in-progress of the KV 2, i decided to wash directly on the white instead of afterwards over the sponge withering. I tried out Vallejo Black Wash and went a bit over the top, as the result is rather dark and bold. It acted more like thinned down colour than wash, as it didnt move into the recesses like citadel or army painter washes do. To soften the effects, i went with 3 (!) turns of white drybrushing and touch ups, as the black wash is incredibly present and didnt want to be covered by the white.

After that, the KV 1 got a sponge treatment with Vallejo German Grey, and the Panther M10 with Vallejo US Olive drab and a bit German Grey afterwards. Next up, a wash to bring the colours together. I used Dark Tone on the KV 1, as it works better with the grey-ish colour scheme, and a mix of Strong and Soft Tone, as the brown is a good choice for the greenish colour of the Panther.

I took a break there, for the was to settle for a couple of hours and after that, ill touch up some spots with a light white drybrush and focus on the tracks. Currently waiting for the AK Interactive tracks book, to have some ideas, what and how to properly take care of them.

Hope you liked the tanks and paint jobs. Thanks a lot for reading, come by again soon and leave a comment or give me a like on Facebook if you like this blog!

[SiamTiger]

Part 1 of my Salute Journey

Saturday, April 16th, a very early morning, i grabbed my flight to London, got on the plane, jumped into the rental after landing and headed for ExCeL London.

At 08:30 in the morning, a solid 1,5 hours prior to opening, there was already a solid queue and quickly, just after 09:00 the queue doubled.

Continued over here; http://www.chaosbunker.de/?p=9926&lang=en

[OSHIROmodels]

It was good to meet you on the day 

Sme good painting on those tanks 

cheers

James

[SiamTiger]

Thanks, your booth and table is covered in this part of the coverage as well

After the introduction on Salute, welcome back on Part Two on Tuesday.

As Salute is an international event, there are companies from all over the world and of course from Germany as well. The well known Pirates from Freebooter Miniatures participated once again at the Salute. And of course, no show without some nifty releases - bringing small ships and boats to Freebooters Fate, individually and as a special bundle offer.

Continued over here; http://www.chaosbunker.de/?p=9926&lang=en

[SiamTiger]

Among the most prominent wargaming companies is Mantic for sure. The colourful stand was crowded and the deadzone table caught my eye. And then there was this enormous Kings of War battle going on - it was so incredibly huge. Simply insane.

Continued over here; http://www.chaosbunker.de/?p=9990&lang=en

[SiamTiger]

A special highlight for the last part. What kind of a show would it be, without the Perrys? They were there themself, with a wide stand only covering their plastic sets (Dave Thomas takes care of their blisters at show - who was at Salute as well). The novelties were anglo-centric with the Cape Frontier Wars.

Right next to the Perrys were Renedra, who take care of the production of plastic kits for half the wargaming business. It was great meeting the family behind the company, so lovely people. They showed the new castle / tower kit, and it was selling like hotcakes. No wonder for me, look how impressive it is.

Continued over here; http://www.chaosbunker.de/?p=10021&lang=en

Later on i'll post my personal conclusion and haul

[SiamTiger]

So I've completed my four part coverage on the Salute, and here is my personal conclusion and "haul" from the event.
The South London Warlords put a lot of effort into the "Swag bag" and the show in general. So along with the ticket, you receive the limited miniature by Westwind Miniatures and a few freebies, in this case a sprue from Maelstrom's Edge. At the info desk you could stock up on older event stock, like badges, t-shirts, dice and miniatures. I used the chance, got last years miniature by the perrys, the D-Day anniversary shirt, along with older events dice and badges.

Along with the Steampunk Dame by Westwind miniatures and last years Agincourt sprue by the Perrys, Nick Northstar and Wargames Emporium teamed up and added a show-only Jack the Ripper (and you could buy it along with last years Steampunk Tart). I've got a soft spot for limited miniatures, so I spend a few bucks on these early at the show.

At Fireforge Games, I got myself the russian militia, as I've seen it at Dalauppror, and will cover them in a review on my own. Black Scorpion added to their Fantasy Football a human star player as well as a gaming trophy. The Blood Bowl enthusiast in me just had to buy them.
First stop at the show was actually at Hasslefree, and I got me the lead variants of Haleth, Ulfred, Oscar and Leonard. At Spectre Miniatures I got the pre-releases of the Tier 1 Operators and the show only Russian Juggernaught and Female Sniper.

For Saga, I got me some Gripping Beast goodies, the two of the new priest, one from the Celts and one from theChristians, along with the new Late Roman Infantry. And as the backpack was getting filled up, I chose wisely, adding the new C3M4 combat drone for Gates of Antares, Crooked Dice PX1 and Second Thunder's Open Combat book. But I forgot to get my copy signed by Carl and Gav.

I'll cover most of these item in upcoming reviews, so stay with me on that. If you have any questions regarding the miniatures, feel free to ask and i'll try to cover that information in the review or an upcoming post.

At the show itself, I was lucky enough to meet the Terrain Tutor Mel himself and exchanged a few words. Amazing guy, amazing work, you should check his Youtube channel out. Unfortunately I missed Viv, from the Knights of Dice /Rubbishinrubbishout.

Salute is a huge show, and if you're into wargaming you should try to at least visit it once. Along with the Crisis in Antwerp, it is one of the biggest shows you can visit in Europe. Some are arguing which of the two is better, but to be honest, with one in spring and the other in autumn, there is no real "competition" and you can get both into your schedule.
As a I am living in the west of Germany, it is easier and cheaper for me to reach Crisis in Antwerp by car or train, or Salute in London by plane through Cologne/Bonn or Frankfurt, than visit the Tactica in Hamburg by car or train. And I would love to see a show that size hosted more central in Germany.

About Salute itself, you can buy affordable tickets to Stansted or Heathrow and head to the exhibition hall, ExCeL, by underground or rental car. The later are quite cheap in the UK, starting around 30 pound per day, which is less than 2 tickets with the Stansted Express.

How were you're experiences at Salute? What caught your eye? How did you treat yourself?

[SiamTiger]

I've prepared a review upon the plastic Fallschirmj臠er for Bolt Action.

http://www.chaosbunker.de/?p=7159&lang=en

[SiamTiger]

May the 4. be with you! Happy Star Wars day. Not the worst date to publish a Sedition Wars review;

was part of the original sedition wars kickstarter, but couldn't be motivated to invest additional 30 USD on top of my 100 USD biohazard pledge. A few weeks ago i stumbled on the kit by chance on a wargaming board. The kit has a rrp of 40 USD.

Continued here: http://www.chaosbunker.de/?p=9821&lang=en