2022 Fabtastic Faves of the year...
2022 has continued to be massively busy for me. So busy i actually get a bit stressed out if i feel that I am falling behind on delivery times. I kept thinking this will ease off soon when the cost of living omnishambles kicks in but looking at my 2023 I am already solid into March.
"022 was a bit of a Damascene conversion for myself. I am not a technical type of person and am easily confused by technology however in 2022 I decided to take the plunge and get a 3d printer, a resin printer no less! The motivation was straightforward, since 2019 myself and a friend had been developing a ruleset combining Ancients with fantasy and it was nearing completion. I wanted to be able to print up the necessary armies (which are small in terms of minis) for playtesting and painting for publication. 3d printing seemed the most cost efficient way to achieve this.
Above you can see some Japanese Samurai by Kyoushuneko miniatures and below some generic Dark Age heavy cavalry by The printing goes ever on. Both are 28mm scale nominally but as with all manufacturers scale varies.
The plunge into 3d has been a massive success for me. It was a steep learning curve but now using a Saturn 2 by Elegoo I can print an entire army in 3 or 4 plates and I will be painting up a Roman army for Legions in the next month or two to show how it works.
The Romans below are not 3d prints, they are Victrix plastics part of a Rome v Carthage job I did earlier in the year. These are nice plastics which paint up really well and the Punic war Romans are my favourite Romans. I have spent most of my life as an avowed Carthaginian supporter until finding out recently they did child sacrifice and now I have switched allegiance...though to be honest it's a choice of two evils.
During testing of Legions we discovered the Romans lacked a big hitter - a troll equivalent. This meant they were getting regularly beaten in the combat area of the game as most other ancients armies had a cyclops, ogre, troll etc. The model below solved the problem. It is again a 3d print this time by Archvillain games and is a tortoise. Ancients players will know the Romans utilised a Testudo (tortoise) formation and this beast, standing 75mm high, became the Roman Testudo!
This Scorpion type contraption by Gripping beast provided some long range punch as well as it has 'critical beast/massive' as an attribute which allows it to cause two hits on every 5 or 6 rolled when shooting at beasts and massive enemies. Unfortunately I discarded the packaging which had the actual name of this artillery, I think it began with an M but cant remember!
Old style metals here. These are Foundry Plains Indians and were sculpted and cast last century. They were cutting edge then but are a bit dated now. I have a Legions Amerindian army and co-opted all the old Foundry Plains Indians that i owned into the army. Not the gun armed ones obviously!! It is a mobile force on the whole and can also use Wendigo, Thunder Eagle and other North American mythical creatures as well as more regular troop types. A battle report against a Viking type army is on the Blog.
Once again MCP has been a big presence on my painting table with commissions from the UK, USA and Europe. There seems to be an almost endless seam of characters, most of whom I have never heard of and I suspect it will continue to be popular in 2023.
MODOK here is a fun paint, like most well suited to airbrushing
Iron fist is a classic flying mcp mini held up by his flamey dragon thing. This is a great example of how plastics can deliver dynamic poses way beyond metals.
Captain Kinky boots and his dancing bear has been popular recently as well so I assume is a recent release.
Another Flying model. Dr Voodoo held aloft by his mystical purply smoke. I do like this model, especially the head/face. I still remember being terrified by Baron Samedi in 'Live and let die' so this rings a scary old bell for me
Blood Bowl was another theme this year, especially Dwarfs for some reason... This Lawnmower from forgeworld was a nice piece but overall it was the colour scheme that I enjoyed. Teal and orange is a winner and whoever chose it at GW did a great job.
Infinity remained popular across me desk with Pan O, TAK, Tohaa and Aleph all being popular. In a bit of a repitition I think whoever chooses the colours for Infinity factions is absolutely killing it.
These first three are all Tohaa and being older minis are not easy to put together. The contact points are small and parts didnt always match exactly but they look nice once completed. I hope CB do a newer set up to the current quality some time soon.
These PanO are at the opposite end of the spectrum, crisp and easy to assemble - these are a pleasure to paint!
Love these Trinitarians for Military Orders
Another PanO variant were these Acon minis on their very grassy bases to match their helmets.
For sheer stylishness I think that JSA take some beating, especially JSA on motorbikes and JSA Samurai!
Away from Infinity I sold my LOTR collection earlier in the year to finance the whole 3d printing thing and dont regret it all. I still like LOTR minis however whether GW or 3d printed. These Haradhrim are some GW I painted up whilst below are a couple of Orc minis from 'The printing goes ever on'
As I test out the fantasy legions lists I will be expanding the Orc army I have already printed to include their latest offerings https://www.theprintinggoeseveron.com/shop/
Strangest job of the year was an Alice in Wonderland themed set from a game called 'Wonderland Wars.' I have always been a big Wonderland fan. JUst a couple of pictures are shown here but the whole set is in the newest pictures section of the website. Fans wont need me to identify them but for those less au fait with Wonderland we have the Oyster loving Walrus and Carpenter.
The time has come,' the Walrus said,
To talk of many things:
Of shoes — and ships — and sealing-wax —
Of cabbages — and kings —
And why the sea is boiling hot —
And whether pigs have wings.'
And then we have the mad hatters tea party!
As usual a small amount of 40k stuff also came across the desk, actually just Eldar of various types which was good as they are my favourite faction in 40k, graceful and stylish like we would all like to be but absolutely aren't.
A lot of the job were Aspect Warriors of whom the Howling Banshees were my favourites, These are really dynamic plastics and well up to the best GW makes.
A Dark Eldar Kill team was also painted up with colours provided by the client which were bang on and produced areally coherent set of minis with a definite alien feel to them
Some old favourites also made an appearance with both Gaunts Ghosts and Krieg in plastics being painted. The Krieg retained the WW1 German vibe even down to using Feldgrau as the base colour while the Ghosts cloaks benefitted from some nice airbrushing.
Bolt Action remained a constant in 2022 and has shown no sign of diminishing in popularity. Especially Germans! The quad 20mm Flakwagen was a tricky assemble as many Warlord metal guns tend to be but makes an impressive piece once done. The Warlord Maultier on the other hand is a classic plastic kit I would absolutely recommend and you can see the quality difference in the two photos.
Interestingly quite a percentage of Bolt Action that came my way this year was 3d printed. All the below came as 3d prints including the crew figures. The Katyushas give a real sense of heft whwn you see them like this. I have no idea of what aiming system is in use here other than pointing them at Germany.
Similarly I imagine this 203mm howitzer packs a punch in the game
Finally some Type 89 Armoured Cars for a Japanese force. I can understand the value of 3d prints in all the previous three examples as they are all very niche and would sell so few as to be not worth the likes of Warlord actually producing whereas if you need Panzer IV or T34 its probably worth just getting some nice plastics.
So that is a wrap on 2022. In my immediate future I can see a heap pf MCP, some Barons War medieval metals, Morats for Infinity, more Bolt Action Germans and even some Star Wars for the new game that is inbound. For my personal collections I will be looking at Romans for Legions and Orcs for Legions fantasy.
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