So I finally painted a mini for the first time in like a decade (eek!) - I got a 3D printer (FDM) last month and it has just blown my mind. So much so that I invested in a resin printer with the intent to print minis, and yes, finally paint them.
What pushed me over the edge was seeing the new(ish) Army Painter Speed Paints. I am lazy and perfectly content to prime black, heavily dry brush white, and then do a single once over with these speed paints. They're almost like washes though I see them compared to GW's contrast paints a lot (not familiar with them, last GW paint I bought was from when they had just changed their pot shapes and put out their own line of washes.)
Anyway with that combo I painted this old GW Gandalf miniature from the LotR line (it's probably from 2002, though undoubtedly GW is still using the same sculpt) I had in a bitz box.
I'm going to be building some war bands for Frostgrave, which if you don't know, is a mini-agnostic skirmish game that leans in to narrative and campaign play. You play as a Wizard, his Apprentice, and some hired thugs as you loot the thawing magic city of Felstadt ("Frost Grave") in search of ancient magic relics. I've given the rulebook a once over and it's pretty nice, lot of things to like.
I've wanted to get back in to skirmish stuff for years (I have an unpainted starter of Marvel: Crisis Core, Fallout: Wasteland Warfare, and Star Wars: Legion I've bought over the years with the intent to play) but just have not found the motivation. The 3D printing stuff really sent me over the edge. The tech isn't consumer grade...yet, but it's pretty damn close, plus it's as inexpensive as it's ever been. Seriously I couldn't believe how cheap this stuff was.
With the ability to print my own figures I decided to seek out miniature agnostic systems. I love 40K to death but I'm just never going to play it again and as much as I'd like to play Fallout or Crisis Core I just don't want to be locked in to buying expensive minis from a single brand. I want to find some cool miniatures and then add them to whatever game I'm playing.
Yeah, I could have been doing that all along, but no way I'm showing up to a game store with a full proxy army.
Frostgrave seems pretty good, I had no idea Osprey started a gaming division a few years back. I have some of the history books and I think an entire book on how to paint a Panzer IV (lol.)
I also picked up Song of Blades and Heroes, another fantasy skirmish ruleset (with a really neat activation system) and Rangers of Shadowdeep which seems to be a cooperative skirmish based lite RPG.
Are GW games all still I Go, You Go?
Couple months back I did pick up a bunch of metal Star Trek minis for use with Starlfleet Battles/Federation Commander. I've got Federation, Romulan, and Klingon Ships. I plan to use them with a Star Trek RPG I'm going to GM. I kind of stalled out on that project but now I'm excited so we'll see how that develops.