Episode 8 - 2012 Year in Review

Welcome to the final episode of the year. In this episode, Chuck and John discuss Waste Wars X and how each of their teams did in the tournment. Towards the end of the segment, John throws out a challenge to folks living in northern Illinois and southeast Wisconsin. After istening to John rant about the tournament, the guys talk about how they are wrapping up the year from a hobby perspective. To wrap things up, the episode ends with a best/worst of 2012 segment.

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Latest from Andrew's Desk

Seeing as John's been posting soo much lately about his Fimir, I figured it'd be good for me to show what I've been doing too!

I've painted up the two 25th anniversary models GW put out this year for my brother this Christmas. He started in 2nd edition with his good friend, which is then how I got into it. His friend passed away a few years ago due to an allergy problem, so this is a nice way of remembering him and how awesome he was haha. I then used the program cover from Games Day and the cover for the Crimson Fists model as a background piece to frame it. Overall, I like how it turned out and he enjoyed the gift, so that's all that matters!

I also painted the first of a variety of Game of Thrones characters from the series. Dark Sword Miniatures puts out pretty much every character, and some of my siblings like it. So, I asked for their favorites, and the first/easiest to do was Ghost, the Dire Wolf. This was the first time I'd painted dog/wolf eyes, and it was surprisingly easy to do once I found an appropriate color.

This is my list of main colors, for the curious. Oh, and I primed all in white:

Blood Angel
Red Armor
- Blood Red basecoat
- Blazing Orange highlight
- Dwarf Flesh 2nd highlight
- Baal Red wash
- Skull White 3rd highlight

Black Armor
- Chaos Black basecoat
- Shadow Grey highlight
- Space Wolves Grey 2nd highlight

Yellow Armor
- Casandora Yellow wash
- Skull White highlight


Crimsons Fist
Blue Armor
- Regal Blue basecoat
- Ultramarines Blue highlight
- Space Wolves Grey 2nd highlight
- Asurmen Blue wash

Red Armor
- Mechrite Red basecoat
- Blood Red highlight
- Blazing Orange 2nd highlight
- Leviathan Purple wash


Dire Wolf
- Space Wolves Grey basecoat
- Skull White drybrush

- Chaos Black eyes
- Terracotta color highlight
- Skull White dot highlight

On the Bench: Dragon Forge Broken Wasteland Bases

One of the first things that I noticed about the bases was the quality of the casting and the type of resin used for them. There are a lot of companies that are doing resin bases, and not all of them are of the same level of quality as what Dragon Forge provided. I like that they use a higher quality resin and this goes a long way to justify the $1.00 per base cost.

When looking at the selection of bases available, I decided to go with the Broken Wasteland series. The reason I selected these was that I liked the look of the grainy desert areas when contrasted with the cracked tile sections of each base. I also selected them as I am painting the bases first and deciding what to mount on them later. I do like the Lost Empires series, but may save them for a future project. Also, the selection of square bases is much smaller and the ones available just are not as interesting or impressive as those offered by Back-2-Base-IX or Microart Studios.



I began the process of preparing the base by cleaning the small amount of flash on the bases. After I cleaned them, I gave each base a wash with warm water and a drop of dish soap. Once the bases were dry, I gave them a coat of white primer (Army Painter brand) and allowed them to dry overnight.

To start the process of painting them, I applied a diluted coat of Snakebite Brown to the gravel areas of the bases. After the layer dried, I applied another layer to the same areas to assure that I had a reasonable amount of coverage. While the one section was drying, I also applied a coat of Desert Brown to the skull on the one base.


The next layer was to the cracked tile. I used a thinned layer of Desert Sand which was applied in two coats to make sure I had covered all of the white primer.



With the base coating finished, I applied a thinned wash of GW Sepia to the bases (excluding the skull on the one base). Once the wash dried, I went back with a slightly thicker wash of Sepia that was applied to the deeper sections of each base and to spots that were bleeding the base coat.


Once the washes were dry, I applied the first layer of paint to the cracked tile sections of the base. I used a 50/50 mix of Desert Sand and Bleached Bone that was thinned. Next, I applied a layer another layer of the same mix with a little more Bleach Bone added to it. This was followed by another layer that was an additional thinning of prior mix with Bleached Bone.



I continued the process of highlighting the cracked areas by using a thinned layer of Bleached Bone. With each additional layer, I added Dead White and thinner to the mix.



When it came to the sandy sections of each base, I started with a drybrush of Snakebite Brown. This was followed by a drybrush of Vomit Brown. I finished with a soft drybrush of Bleached Bone.


The skull on the one base was painted using a modified version of the approach I use for my skeletons. I gave the model a thinned wash of Sepia, followed by a wash of Devan Mud in the deeper sections of the skull. Once the washes were dry, I layered it with Desert Brown that was mixed with Bleached Bone and Skull White.



When it came to the rim of the base, I used a couple of thinned layers of Khemri Brown.


The last step was to add a small clump of static grass to each base. I decided to do this to add a little contrast to the painted colors.



In conclusion, my overall opinion of Dragon Forge’s Broken Wasteland series of resin bases is very high. The quality of resin in casting is well worth the $1.00 per base price. I also found the assortment of bases diverse enough to make each base feel unique while still keeping with the overall theme of the series. I also liked that the bases were designed such that I could add a little bit of static grass to make the bases standout a bit more.