Tips on Finding a Gaming Group

Howdy friends,

This post originally started as a script for a video I was going to do with my local shop Element Games. They've been trying to build up their online presence with a youtube channel you can check out here. Unfortunately the shoot wasn't able to happen before I left Manchester, but I thought people would still find it interesting.

I also thought it was appropriate as it's about offering some tips on how to find a gaming group in a new place, something that I will have to do very shortly once I've got myself set up here in Canada!

So firstly, I should preface this by saying these tips are not just pulled out of thin air. I moved to England four years ago to a city I had never been with no connections or friends there whatsoever. I ended up having my closest friends group stem from my miniature hobby, and it was one of the most fulfilling experiences I had in the UK. I developed my hobby skills hugely and built a really close relationship to Element, its employees, and its patrons. Element originally asked me to give these tips specifically because I'd ingratiated myself within the community so effectively. So without further ado:

Finding a play group in a new place.

There were three main routes that I took to start building connections. Note that this also works for boardgame/roleplaying/cardgame hobbies as well.

1. Check out all the gaming shops in your area and speak to the employees. Tell them outright that you're new to the area, what systems you play, and ask about the community there. I recommend checking out as many shops as you can so you can see if there's one you really connect with, whether through the space itself or the attitude of the employees.
2. Online forums for your system are a great resource, and most have "find a player" threads or sections. I originally found out about Element Games through the Infinity forums when a player invited me to meet there for a demo game. I would note that army-specific forums are probably too limited for doing this effectively, ideally you should be looking at forums that deal with whole game systems.
3. Local Facebook groups for the systems or shops you are interested in are definitely really useful, and probably the main method local players organise games. However, I would suggest introducing yourself properly when you first join. A one-line post from a stranger saying "when is 40k played?" is not particularly thrilling to an established play group who know nothing about you. Introduce yourself, toss up a picture of your army, how you like to play, tell a joke, briefly give that community a sense of who you are.

Connecting to a gaming community.

In my mind there are two main approaches to take if you're new to a community and want to ingratiate yourself.

Be Flexible - If you are unable to put lot of time and effort into the community I strongly encourage having a bit of flexibility in what you play and how you play it. Adapt yourself to your local scene. This is true both within the game and outside of it. Adapt to a group if it leans more towards a competitive or casual play styles. Maybe try a different system if your chosen one isn't popular at the moment. This is especially easy for skirmish level games where you can get a new army up quickly. Game systems tend to come in and out of popularity in cycles so your preferred one will probably pop back up soon!

Be a Leader - If you are able to put in time and effort you can make a positive impact on your playgroup by organising and introducing new things. If you want to play a different system, or play an established one in a different way, then you can absolutely make that happen on your own initiative. There is no better way to bring value to your local community than by taking the time to get people interested and excited about new things. During my time in the UK I ran a 40k narrative campaign, joined a bunch of RPG games, and built playgroups around the Game of Thrones card game and Infinity miniatures game by offering demos and organising weekly play nights. The great thing about this hobby is that people tend to be really open minded and up for trying different things. We all have systems or playstyles we want to try but haven't had a chance to yet.

Voicing issues within a gaming community.

If you do find there are some issues in your local scene that you can’t look past these can typically be solved by politely communicating to either players and/or the shop what your grievances are. In my experience about 90% of these problems can be solved through communication, and being upfront yet understanding about these problems is a great way to contribute to the quality of the community.

Some good examples I've dealt with myself is there not being enough terrain, people not showing up to gaming meetups, poor store support for a product, etc. Keep in mind it's good to phrase your complaints in a positive way. Instead of saying "it's annoying there isn't enough Infinity terrain" you can say "I really want to bring more Infinity players in but there isn't enough terrain, would you be able to help support the game a bit more?"

Obviously this gets a bit more complicated if we're talking about problem players. Not getting along with someone is heavily context dependant, and I'd encourage you to defer to how the established gaming group handles things.

Keeping up a hobby as a student.

I've been a University student for nine years and kept up a miniatures hobby for almost that entire time. I've got some good tips, especially for undergraduate students.

• Work on a smaller scale. Smaller armies. Less hobby supplies. Less storage needs. Don't buy too much. You're going to be moving a bunch. You're probably using public transportation. Keep it streamlined. As much as this might be a little painful, it does help in many ways, it keeps your budget tight, it means you have less to paint, it keeps you very focused. Be a hobby ascetic, take pride in the fact that you still manage to have a great time without the luxury of lots space, money, or a car.
• Quality instead of quantity with your supplies and purchases. Unless your really tight for cash buy a box at a time rather than getting a huge unpainted second-hand army.  Again it’s about keeping focused and keeping the hobby lean. Spend more time on a smaller number of figures rather than trying to shift through a huge backlog. This will also help improve your painting!
• Don't feel bad about taking breaks from the hobby. Being a student means that workload tends towards extremes of leisure and intensity. There might be months where you barely have time to pickup a brush, nevermind get games in. There also might be periods where you just lose interest for a while, burnout happens to everyone but because your space is so limited as a student its often tempting to jettison parts of the hobby entirely. That's okay, don't feel bad about it, don't beat yourself up about it. You can always come back.
• On the opposite end of the spectrum, do not let your hobby take over your life. Between the hobby and the gaming aspect it’s very very easy to go down a rabbit hole with miniature gaming. Like any sort of hobby it can lead to an obsessive mindset that's ultimately going to hurt you, and students are particularly vulnerable because it can be a way to procrastinate and still feel like you've done something productive. Be aware of how you're thinking about it and know when to ease off.
• Do some stuff that isn't geek-centric. It's always good to have variety in life, especially stuff that involves not sitting at a table or desk. Whether its hiking, going out with friends, playing music, sport, whatever, do try to have other stuff to focus on. Even if it’s largely secondary to your hobby you'll be very glad to have it!

With those pieces of advice in mind, I will say that being a geek is a magnificent way to spend your student years. It's communal, it’s competitive, you build skills as both a hobbyist and a gamer, it is a superb way to relax and decompress. Get out there and have a blast!

Hobby Thoughts: Warhammer 40k's Eight Edition

Hello friends,

So with the arrival of the eighth edition of Warhammer 40k my gaming group is officially hot for the grimdark. There are multiple people building and painting new armies and Element Games has been so overwhelmed with orders that I ended up doing a day of work for them to help out. The hype for the new system has been absolutely wild and I've definitely got caught up in.

I was sorely tempted to start a new army but I made the more responsible choice of coming back to the Ork army I painted in the first half of 2016. I'm working to finish some backlog in a unit of Meganobz and Gretchin I assembled and airbrushed last year before stepping away from 40k. I've also purchased another trukk and some more boyz to make a unit of Tankbustas.

Partially completed Meganobz from last year.

A rokkit pistol conversion for a unit of Tankbustas.

Some initial Tankbustas that have since expanded into a unit of 10.

I can't say I'm thrilled about the prospect of painting another 20+ models for a GW system again, but I did get a game of the new rules in and I was impressed enough that I feel it will be worth it. I'll be temporarily putting my Infinity JSA army on the backburner as I wasn't enjoying painting them nearly as much as the Haqqislam forces, which will continue to be a priority for me in tandem with my 40k army.

The game I had was against a friend's Mechanicus army and I got absolutely slaughtered, inflicting a grand total of three wounds for the entire game while he wiped my whole army of 50+ orks. (to be fair I caused about five wounds on some Kastellan's but they kept getting fixed) Even though the game was pretty brutal it was largely down to my own player errors, and also not realising just how differently everything plays now. This was particularly noticeable in the way in which characters have changed, as I flung my warboss away to no benefit quite early in the game.

The rules are definitely very streamlined and the game ran very smoothly. They've taken the best aspects of Age of Sigmar and kept the nuances inherent to 40k, and overall i'm very impressed with how it played.

Deployment. I ended up with the first turn.

My warboss and biker buddies failing to charge a unit of Kastellans.

My warboss subsequently getting absolutely krumped by said Kastellans.

This image pretty much perfectly sums up the game...
hordes of useless small arms fire against an unstoppable group of big buff robots.

Some shooting and a charge later there was nothing left.

Here are some general first impressions about the new edition:

• The game is quick, streamlined, fun, and still really nuanced with a lot of depth. The system is solid and I enjoyed playing it far far more than anything I'd experienced in 7th edition.
• Lists need to be a lot more focused. Since most units are quite viable with the current indexes it feels like you can no longer take a random assortment of your 'best' units an expect a win. My army didn't feel synergistic and I didn't have a plan and it really showed.
• The 'battle points' system didn't feel very balanced. We used the BP system in order to set up the game quickly and my opponent had 69 points while I had 70. However in practice it felt somewhat unbalanced, as Orks don't have a lot of weapon upgrades to take advantage of for 'free' using this system whereas my opponent had some horrific firepower. One gun would have caused over ten wounds on my trukk in a single shot were it not for a lucky ramshackle roll to make it only eight. I will definitely only be playing with proper 'matched play' point values moving forward.
• Characters are fundamentally different both in terms of how they play and how they are positioned on the board. The new targeting rules means that even combat-focused characters will want to be 'bubble-wrapped' with screens of units in front of them, and in general I noticed less overall damage output from characters. The way that their command auras work is a lot more reminiscent of AoS now and it feels like there's a stronger emphasis on them as supporting units. For example my warboss now has a 'waaagh' buff every turn but it only affects units in perimeter around him, rather than having an army-wide buff that he can only use once per game. It makes for a hugely different unit!
• I've seen a lot of people talking about how Orks have been 'fixed' in this edition after being relatively weak throughout 7th, and there are aspects of it I agree with and aspects I don't. The new mob rule definitely makes an enormous difference in improving our moral, but at the same time it also felt like my overall damage and surviveability was significantly reduced. It looks like huge hordes of boys is going to be a really viable strategy but that's not the type of army I want to build or paint so it might prove challenging to produce a viable alternative. I'm optimistic about Orks in the new edition but I think we may struggle against heavy armour lists.
• In terms of defence: the elimination of jink saves, and the nerfing of cover saves to providing a flat +1 armor bonus means that all of the Ork footsloggers and fast attack options are much more fragile.
• When it comes to offence it appears that Power Klaws are nowhere near as efficient as they once where, which was previously my go-to method of taking out anything bigger than infantry. The new rules for "rend" regarding armor saves means that elite units will still be getting decent saves when they're getting hit with a klaw, despite them having a relatively high rend of -3. For example the Kastellan's in this game were buffed to have 1+ armor saves so they were still getting a 4+ armour save when my bosses and nobs were hitting them. It looks like Big Choppa's will be the new hotness, as their damage output is just as consistent for less of a cost.

Anyways those are my initial thoughts. I look forward to getting some more games in soon, and until then thanks for looking!

Update X: Japanese Sectorial Army for Infinity

Hello friends,

Further progress has been made on my JSA infinity force so that most of them are now mounted on their bases and ready to actually get some games in. I'd promised myself not to play with unpainted figures but the severely limited amount of hobby time I have available has forced me to alter that stance somewhat. I have completed the airbrushed basecoats and highlights on the figures, and I've fully completed their bases, so I'm about half-finished everything.

The bases in question are 25mm Micro Art Studio "Warehouse" bases available here. I really love the quality on these and I had a ton of fun working on them even though I sort of made things up as I went along. I've used a combination of "road themed" MDF cardboard stencils and Vallejo "Burnt Sienna" pigment to get some fun effects going that have made them really dynamic.

I purposely aimed to keep the tones either neutral or warm with the hints of yellow/red in order to complement the warm parchment/red palette of my troops. Hopefully it should all look relatively cohesive once I have the detail work on the troops finished, which will include a lot of browns.

Some airbrush work on a section of the base that emphasizes the warm tone I was going for.

All of the bases ready to be mounted, apologies for the poor lighting.

From here I mounted all of my airbrushed figures to their respective bases, as it will be exclusively traditional brushwork from here on out.

It should be noted that I have given a satin varnish layer to both the miniatures and the bases in order to protect my work. I can't emphasise enough how useful a layer of varnish is to the painting process for these reasons:

1. To avoid taking paint off as I continue to work with them. I don't want the natural oils in my hands or the friction of handling to remove finished sections.
2. To allow them to be used on the tabletop. If you want to play with partially painted figures you had better varnish them so as not to risk losing or damaging your work. This goes double for Infinity figures as they are all metal.
3. To make it easy to fix painting mistakes. The varnish layer means that any accidents or sloppy moments I have in picking out the details can be corrected easily using a mild paint thinner. The thinner will remove the problem area but not go through the varnish layer underneath and ruin what I've already done.

Above are some close-ups of how the figures look at the moment. The airbrush highlighting/shading is done, and the bases are complete, so all that's needed now is some brushwork to pick out the details.

Here's a picture of the whole army so far. Two of the troops in the back were test models, and two have only recently reached the assembled state but I'm nearly there. Once I've got the latter based properly this should form a relatively viable 300 point all-comers list that I can start fielding regularly.

List ahoy! Miyamoto Mushashi and the Oniwaban are the only models not tabletop ready yet.

In the meantime I have continued to play infinity at the North West Gaming centre. I'm definitely starting to get a feel for the game again, and I'm beginning to come back from my initial run of losses. These are still really casual games against relatively beginner opponents but we're definitely starting to explore how dynamic the system can be. It helps that we've started doing more scenarios as well!

Here are some pictures from my last game in which I took my Aleph forces against a Shasvastii-heavy vanilla Combined Army force. We were playing the Quadrant Control ITS scenario that lets you hold quarters of the table with point costs. My opponent won initiative and chose deployment with a very favourable table-side that gave him lots of great spots for his extensive infiltrating camouflage troops. However even with no MSV on my team I was able to push my way up the left flank with Achilles and a myrmidon buddy under the careful supervision of a Sophotect doctor. The game started poorly for me but I ended up winning the scenario quite thanks to a strong left flank and me (eventually) dealing with some of my opponents threats.

The game board, note the TO camo sniper in the top right and the total reaction HMG drone on the left. Brutal ARO potential from my opponent.

My first time fighting against an impersonator and it was not fun. This mono-filament lady took out my Chain of Command Myrmidon Officer before re-disguising herself and causing this ruckus. I eventually managed to take her out with a combi rifle Deva but she was extremely disruptive.

By using the cover of the corridor Achilles and his buddy were able to push into another quadrant and simply refused to move or go down. I felt a little dirty leaning on him so much, but I figure I'll eventually get rid of my Cutter/Achilles crutch once I start playing my JSA forces.

Finally in other news a brand-new edition for 40k has been announced! It's long overdue and I'm really really excited at a streamlined AoS-like update for the 40k ruleset. It is desperately needed at this point, and I'm looking forward to getting my Orks onto the table again. However I don't think anything will match how dynamic the games of Infinity I've been having lately are, there's just nothing quite like it! I hope I will have the time to play both systems in the future and not be forced to choose one or the other.

Infinity Picture Updates!

Howdy friends,

Here's a few pictures of my ongoing re-entry into Infinity! It shows some progress on my Japanese army forces as well as the game boards I've played on recently. Thanks for looking!

These were the test models for the two main colors in my paint scheme. Learnt a few useful things and relatively pleased with the overall effect! Also happy to see my hand-blends on the cloth getting so consistent now.

I use an airbrush to get strong shading and higlights on the red. This ninja is a good example of the sort of depth I'm aiming for.

With some of the JSA figures the clear armor/cloth division led me to experiment with sectioning off portions of the model for airbrushing. It worked quite well and I was pleased with the result. Here is the initial shadows/highlights on the cloth.

And here is the final result with both colors shaded/higlighted with the airbush. There's a bit of overspill but it was easily fixed and I know how to handle the masking better next time!

This figure (a doctor) has seen me finalize some of the shading/highlights on the cloth, glaze the armor, and generally have things be a bit closer to finishing.

Rear-view. I'm not sure about the glaze on the armor, i'm worried i'm losing some of the contrast I got with the airbrush. I might try changing the glaze paint or just thinning it down even further.

Two boards we set up at the local center.

A space station with some lovely artificial foliage.

My Aleph army getting absolutely destroyed by a Yu Jing force. However he put me into retreat before either of us completed any objects so the game ended up being a tie. That's Infinity baby!

To Infinity and Beyond!

After a six month absence from the miniatures hobby I'm finally getting back to the tabletop with Infinity again. I've been playing consistently with some great fellas at my local store, which just so happens to be the Element Games North West Games Center so I'm a pretty lucky guy. The N3 ruleset seems really really good and i'm enjoying the group i'm playing with a lot. I have some pictures to share!

The guys at the shop were kind enough to let me use their lightbox to finally take a decent picture of the PanOceania troops that I painted almost two years ago. However the lightness of the mint color I chose for them makes it almost impossible to get a decent image with a white background. Next time i'll get a black backdrop, and also not choose a daft color to make my primary.

Tonight was my first game using a TAG and it absolutely murdered 70% of my opponent's Combined Army forces in one turn, only to take three wounds from a Boarding Shotgun with fire ammo in my reactive phase! That same shotgunner proceeded to blast apart four of my order monkeys for a huge equalizing swing. It was a really exciting and swingy game that had both of us laughing with joy/horror throughout.

I had my very first win with the N3 rulset after only five games! That win definitely comes down to this rowdy Nisse that was an absolutely brutal ARO piece. With it's multi-sniper rifle, mimetism, and strong sniping location it dominated my opponent's board from the outset and he simply couldn't kill it. To be fair there was a lot of luck on my side but it really hammered home how potent the ARO mechanic can be on the right trooper.

This was the board we played on. It's a combination of cardboard terrain from the Red Veil and Icestorm starter boxes (which are available separately now for eight quid) and more standard wargaming terrain from around the center. Even though it looks a little mismatched we were pretty happy with the result considering how tricky it can be to build a table for Infinity. 

My new friends and I did end up splitting the cost of two sets of proper infinity-friendly terrain being sold by one of the center-goers. These were in like-new condition and we're excited to use them next time we play. Pictures to follow!

Lastly here is the progress on my JSA color scheme that i'm currently in the process of painting. The scheme ended up looking a bit more "Iron Man" than intended but i'm going to try and break that up a bit. Really really excited to play with these guys, but since i'm painting them off their bases I have to wait! arrrrgh!

As ever, thanks for looking.

-Tom

How to choose a great Color Scheme for your Miniatures

Thinking about color-schemes is one of the hidden gems of the miniature hobby that doesn't require much energy but will make a huge difference in terms of your painting (and maybe even your personal life!). It has gotten to the point where my desire to try out new color schemes is one of the primary reasons i'll go out and buy a miniature. It becomes fun to think about various color combinations and I've often found myself taking pictures of objects, settings, or art I encounter in my day-to-day life that have a color palette I find really appealing.

To that end I thought I'd give you some basic points to think about when you're trying to come up with an original color scheme for your miniatures along with an example of my own practices when figuring out a scheme.

Complementary Colors: This is some really basic color theory, there are tons of articles out there which explain this better than I could, but suffice to say that a really good starting point when constructing a palette is to look at a color wheel and check complementary colors. These are constructed by drawing a straight (or nearly straight) line across the the wheel between two colors. Complementary colors are a great way to give yourself a really satisfying choice of primary colors (the most prominent/notable colors in your scheme) to build your palette off of.

These work especially well for miniature painting because you often want your figures to really pop on the table and you can go for really intense complimentary colors that you wouldn't typically see. Such as a deep purple against a light green:

A good example of complementary colors between the purple sword and green armor.

Shades of intensity (hues): Obviously you don't always want the brightest possible colors on your miniatures so keep in mind that you can vary up the level of white and black in your chosen primary colors to make them darker or lighter. For example: green and red are a complementary color but tend to make your figures look like Christmas decorations if you go for really pure and bright versions of both colors, but a really dark or muddy red can pair beautifully with a strong green to give you a much more realistic looking earthy tone.

I often find it helpful once I've settled on a set of 2-3 primary colors to look through the hobby paints offered by various companies to give me an idea of the different variations in shade and brightness I have access to. Keep in mind that you will typically want to build a strong contrast from dark to light for every color when you're layering and highlighting your miniatures, so pushing some of the base colors into a darker tone can make it much easier to highlight upwards. This is true even if you want a really bright overall effect.

Warm and Cool: If you don't like the idea of really strong complementary colors there is another way you can think about the color wheel. Namely a broad distinction in color theory between "warm" and "cool" colors that tend to connote certain feelings. This idea comes up in fashion a lot, with "cool" colors being prioritized in most professional attire as they connote a sort distance and logical exterior. That's why you'll see a lot of blues, greys, and light pinks, in the workplace with just a splash of warmer colors here or there. Whereas warm colors tend to be a bit more earthy and insinuate a more naturalistic environment.

Since we don't tend to dress ourselves with really strong or vibrant color combinations in our day-to-day life we often unknowingly use ideas about "warm" and "cool" color combinations that are analogous (similar tones that are next to each other on the color wheel) to help imply a certain attitude in our day to day life.

Neutral colors: These are colors that are not present on the color wheel and consequently can be used to accompany and accent the complementary or analogous schemes you come up with. These can make great tertiary colors to pick out smaller details on the models without clashing or upsetting the balance of your main colors.

Broadly speaking there are only four neutral colors: Black, Brown, Grey, and White. However any sort of color combination you can achieve with these four shades is considered neutral, and consequently you have a huge variety to choose from when finding something that will accompany your main colors.

All of these are very neutral colors

Keep in mind that brown tends to be a warm neutral color whereas grey tends to be a cool one. Most metal paints fall under the neutral umbrella as well, with gold/copper being warm and silver/steel being cool. Pure black and pure white never clash with any color scheme and can be used anywhere, although be aware that they are such strong tones they can easily dominate the overall colors of your model.

You can, of course, also choose to use a neutral color as one of your primary colors, which gives you a lot of leeway when choosing the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th colors on your figure.

Studio color scheme from Infinity.

The above image is a great example of using a neutral primary color (in this case white) while still getting some nice complementary tones out of the 2nd and 3rd colors. Note that the red and green color combination doesn't feel like a Christmas decoration at all, owing to the strong overall presence of the white.

Bases are a color too!: When designing your color scheme make sure you put some thought into how you will base your models, as the colors present in the base can be used to compliment or contrast the scheme of the model. For example you can paint your figure with one primary color and still get a really strong complementary effect by making your base it's opposite on the color wheel.

Teal and orange(ish)

Purple and green.

These guys are based using a darker/warmer tone of a similar color to set off their desaturated look.

You can also base for cohesion, in which the base becomes an extenuation of the colors present on the figure.

A good example of basing for cohesion with similar tones/shades present across the piece to tie it all in.

Finally you can also choose neutral bases that simply aim not to clash with your figure's colors. (A grey urban "rubble" base is a typical example) This is an especially good idea if your miniature has a lot of different strong colors on it. Your base color will make a huge difference in the overall appearance of your figure, so choose carefully! For more information you can check out my roomate's great blog articles on basing for contrast and basing for cohesion.

Some colors are easier to paint: For beginner-to-medium skilled painters there are certain colors that are just difficult to paint on miniatures. This is primarily because it's tough to get a nice level of contrast out of them. Contrast is the movement from dark to light as you go from the deepest details of the miniature to the highest ones in a way that mirrors the way light plays upon different colors in real life. In miniature painting we frequently push contrast to extremes in order to really make a miniature pop out on the table, not only in terms of our color combinations as mentioned above but also in terms of how each color moves from dark to light on the figure.

There are a few colors where it is objectively easier to get this contrast, and a few where it's objectively harder. Typically cool colors like blues and purples are really easy to get a nice contrast out of, whereas warm colors like red, orange, and yellow are more difficult. If you're employing a lot of warm colors but you still want a lot of contrast make sure you plan your shading/layering process carefully so you know how you'll get it.

A great example of this is trying to highlight red, as it tends to gradually turn into either pink or orange tones depending on what paints your using to lighten the color. Careful that you end up with a highlight you're happy with!

To give you some instances of how color schemes can be structured I've included a few palettes bellow...

Example #1: Complementary Color

Primarily a complementary contrast between an olive-green and a deep purple, which would go over armor or the main articles of clothing with a nice cream color as a tertiary option for extraneous clothing or leathers. The yellow would be a metallic gold for metals that compliments the warmth of the olive/cream notes.

A good example of how the scheme fits together.

Example #2: Neutral as a Primary Color

Black is a dominant neutral color here, but allows us to get some really strong complementary colors going on in the background between the teal and the orange. The deep red  can be used for further detailing as it complements the teal and is analogous to the yellow.

The image I based the above scheme on.

Example #3: Analogous Colors

This is the only palette here I didn't design myself, but as you can see it gives an example of a very cohesive palette based on autumnal colors, all of which are very warm, earthy, and close to each other on the color wheel.

A good example of how this sort of color scheme might be translated onto a set of figures. Note that the painter still uses splashes of bright blue to get some strong complementary effects here and there, and uses very light neutral skintones and greys to avoid clashing with the primary red/gold patterns.

Thanks for reading guys! I hope some of you found this article helpful and that my scatter-brained tips will help you see the fun you can have with designing color schemes. See you soon!

Forge World Fails to Impress

Disclaimer: I have often stated that one of the things I dislike about miniature-wargaming as a hobby is the entitled and oft-negative nature of its customer base. There are a lot of reasons why this attitude exists within the community, some of them reasonable, but many not so much. While I hate adding my voice to the  criticisms sometimes I can't help it and this is one of those times. I hope you find me justified.

Earlier this week I made my first ever purchase of a Forge World miniature,a subsidiary arm of Games Workshop that manufactures highly-detailed resin figures designed to compliment or replace those produced by GW itself. Forge World, like its parent company, gets a lot of flak for its high prices, but I have heard little to no criticism of its actual product.

So when I decided to treat myself by purchasing a new and untouched Ork Warboss on a Bike second-hand from Ebay, I felt assured that I'd get a great figure out of it. Unfortunately I was profoundly disappointed by the quality of the sculpt.

Now I know the first thing some people might take issue with is that I purchased this item through Ebay, as I know there is a whole recasting industry located in China that does imitations of Forge World products for half the price. I want to emphasize that what follows is an original Forge World product. 

• I purchased it from within the UK through an individual seller and not a store.
• The figure arrived within a Forge World bag with appropriate barcode, 
• When I needed a replacement part the seller provided me with his original order number. I used  this to contact Forge World directly who confirmed the original order/barcode and had a new part sent to me.

Hopefully this is sufficient to establish authenticity, and I can get into my issues with the quality of the sculpt itself.

Firstly, here is a layout of the figure's components. There are a lot of parts but its an intricate sculpt so that can be overlooked. There is also no assembly instructions included, but I had heard in advance that Forge World was really bad for this and was not expecting any. Thankfully I located an exceptionally detailed blogpost explaining how to assemble him. So despite this initial problem this is all pretty reasonable.

To give credit where it is due, the components that are well-cast look really good. The best example of this is the main body of my warboss, who looks pretty great right out of the bag. Although the chain on his little skull necklace is subject to some of the casting issues I encounter elsewhere.

Now we get into the real problem. It seems like every small component was very poorly cast, and they all have a huge assortment of flash and mold-lines. This is especially problematic given forgeworld's choice of casting material. Resin lacks the pliancy of plastic in which you don't need much force to trim and cut away excess material even on fine points. 

At the same time it is nowhere near as durable as metal, which requires more pressure to clean excess casting material but is very unlikely to break or lose its shape. To get around this a lot of companies use a type of soft resin mixed with plastic that is easier to work with, Games Workshop's "finecast" material is like this. (Which, despite its rocky beginnings, has become a great material to work with as time has gone on.) Forge World resin on the other hand seems to be "pure" resin and is extremely brittle, to the point that I believe they should not be attempting to cast anything small or intricate with it.

I am an experienced hobbyist, and I am happy to spend lots of time cleaning and assembling an expensive character figure like this. Between fresh hobby knives, a set of miniature nail files, a jeweller's saw, and small clippers I should have all of the tools and expertise necessary to effectively clean up a messy cast like this. Yet I have never felt a material fight me so much as when I work with Forge World resin. No matter how gentle I am I feel constantly at risk of having chunks of the model break apart from under me. Cleaning the really fragile components feels like trying to remove every individual piece of salt from a soda cracker without breaking it. Sure, with a sharp enough knife and enough time it is possible, but also exhausting, and I am constantly at risk of breaking off big flakes of material. This has also made me seriously concerned about future breakages as I plan to use my warboss on the tabletop. I don't know if pinning will matter much if the material just shatters around the pin...

Even the large components can be hard to work with. Many of the mould-lines are the product of off-set castings that require a lot of work to align.

Finally, to top off this nightmare of quality control Forge World accidentally packaged two copies of the left-hand bike gun rather than one for each side. As a result I had to get in touch with the Ebay seller to get his original order number so I could arrange a replacement part through Forge World. To their credit they were kind enough to cast another gun for me even though the original order was past their usual three month returns deadline. I had heard their customer service is excellent, which seems to be true, but at the same time I now completely understand why this company would require a good Customer Service team.

To put things in perspective, I wanted to give some examples of resin done right via some images of Guild Ball figures. These figures and its game are the product of an independent company called Steamforged Games that is closely associated with my local store Element Games. Yet despite their smaller size ,the quality of their resin casting is exceptional. Small components are not bent out of shape, flash is kept to a minimum, and mold-lines are  small and easy to remove. Despite their 28mm figures being almost half the size of my massive warboss, the detail seems just as good if not better on many components. To top it all off, their resin is of a much nicer and more workable quality than the Forge World equivalent.

Note the thin arms on the bottom left that came out perfectly.

A reasonable and easily cleaned mold-line along the front torso of the figure.

Another reasonable mold line along this guy's side.

Conclusion: I am a casual hobbyist, and my skills don't demand flawlessly cast miniatures in order for me to get the most out of my painting and gaming. Yet it seems to me that Forge World products are of such poor quality they are not suitable for tabletop gaming or professional hobbyists. The figure I purchased is an omnishambles of bad casting, extremely brittle resin, and poor quality control. They are a major company with probably the single most expensive miniature wargaming figures in the world, and yet independent companies with cheaper figures comprehensively outperform them. If I could have returned my warboss I would have, but as it stands he will represent my first and last time working with a forge world miniature.

Update: Since writing this piece, I have had a chance to take a close look at other forge world products shown to me by friends and the like. Some have been totally unassembled, others painted, and I admit that some of them looked to be very nice casts indeed. Yet the quality seems to vary enormously, and the brittleness of the resin that I discuss here is present across the entire range. However I feel its important I acknowledge that Forge World is perfectly capable of producing decent casts, and reiterate that this blog is an account of my initial experience with them, and why it led to them losing me as a customer. I know that my experience is not an isolated incident, nor do I think this blog is merely an angry rant. The issues I outline are legitimate grievances with Forge World's quality. I'm not sitting here hoping my blog puts Forge World out of business, rather I genuinely hope they fix these issues and that anyone else who decides to purchase from them has a better experience than my own.