War of the Ring Diary- Day 1- prepping

I'm back! Three months away; I'm itching to get gaming and playing with miniatures again. Whilst away, I had  a lot of time to think about the multiple projects and ideas I've got on the go, and got a bit carried away with what I was going to achieve on my return. I sobered up and realised there's just not enough time for everything...

I prioritised my tasks- I've only got a few weeks, but I'm comparatively uninterrupted so I'm aiming to knock over a few projects:

• I intend to put a big dent into my Somalia '93 15mm forces. I've got an order coming in from Gamecraft and am looking forwards to assembling a load of MDF buildings.
• I bought the 2nd edition of War of the Ring- this is a board game, but has over 200 miniature playing pieces. I just can't let them go without a coat of paint, more fool me… This will be my primary project for the next few weeks- can I get it done by the end of April?

So let's get underway.

Day 1. Prep.

I hate prepping figures. I love painting, and can't see myself employing anyone to paint for me. But if someone offered services to provide assembled, deflashed, based and primed figures I'd be tempted…

The plastic mountain

The figures are soft plastic of variable scales, but the foot and mounted figures are about 20mm. Unfortunately, about 10% of the figures have warped spears or drunk horses. A dunk in hot water then cold water corrects this to my satisfaction. In this case, there's no flash to remove. The mould lines are acceptable for the purpose (and I don't have all year…) and there are a few injection point remnants which I can't be bothered to remove at this stage. If they bug me later I'll remove them then, but I think there's going to be enough miniatures on the board to let it slide.

 

Figures with warped weapons and leaning horses

I had briefly considered sticking a washer to the base of each figure to give them heft, lower their centre of gravity, and to enable magnetic storage- but then thought better of it. It wasn't worth the time- which is going to be a key catchphrase related to this project!

Then I washed the figures in soapy water to remove any mould release agent, and let them dry overnight.

 

Figures drying