Epaka

@Ken, @Matt John S; Hey guys, I've finally printed out the campaign and look forward to giving it a play very soon. It looks great, congrats on all the hard work! Reading through it, I have one question right away (although I may have others eventually)... If Victory Points are added up at the end of the 4th scenario, and winning a scenario is worth 1 Victory Point, why is there a potential bonus listed for 5 Victory Points? How would the Heroes or the Overlord possibly have 5 VPs?...

I happened upon a pic of Khel from way back when. He was pretty early on in my Conan mini painting adventures, and I would almost like to take another stab at him actually. At the very least I’d like to add some red eyes now... Meh, as always, I’m painting for the game board, not a museum.

As a huge fan of Pandemic, I’ve picked up the Cthulhu spin-off. It’s a good game IMO. It’s different enough from the original Pandemic to hold my interest, but still keeps the same cooperation and strategic thinking that makes the original game such a winner. I recently painted the (admittedly middling) minis that came with the game. This is a pretty crappy pic, so I’ll eventually get around to taking some better ones.

Getting around to all the odds and ends I have not painted yet. That includes some of the upgraded components for Cthulhu Wars that I have. I’m tackling the plastic gates now... I have the paint plan now, and I should be able to crank out 6 gates per faction, as well as 3 or 4 generic gates to represent abandoned gates. I think that should be enough for almost any game of CW. I’ll be adding some blood to the alters on the Yellow Sign gates as well, since I used blood fairly liberally on the Undead minis and the King in Yellow...

@garbetsp, thanks for the advice on the red sable brushes. I’m putting in an order for a set. $23 for a set of 7 detail brushes. Can’t complain about that price point.

Nice work @BertD! Honestly, very good looking mini, particularly for a beginner. Your technique will only get better from here. The only thing I would note, is that it looks like he has a fur ‘skirt’ on, under his chainmail loincloth. It is hard to tell from the picture, but it looks like you painted the chainmail and the fur the same metallic color. I might have gone for a light brown on the fur part. That would make the chainmail stand out more perhaps? But that is a minor nitpick, you’ve done a good job. Hopefully you had fun painting him. As for brushes, I’m not the one to ask. I’ve mostly worked with pretty cheap, low quality brushes to be honest. Getting some better brushes has been on my list for awhile. As for primer, I’ve also been cheap. I’ve always used standard cans of white Rust-Oleum aerosol. It’s always worked fine for someone like me, who isn’t a master mini painter. Perhaps some of the really skilled mini artists on here will have some more insight than I do? @garbetsp? @Walrusboy77? Any thoughts?

Any set of quality paints is just a collection of colors and potential colors, which can be used to create any kind of ‘style’... How you choose to paint your minis is up to you. The same miniature will look very different based on who painted it. Just look at the thread on this website called ‘Show your Conan’, you’ll see a lot of different styles applied to the same miniature. Some are stylized, some are realistic, some look like a photograph of the lifelike thing, some look like a comic book illustration. Just keep painting and find your own style... and share your work here!

@garbetsp, well, it’s easy to forget. Lol. I really like the Age of Conan Strategy Game. I honestly think it’s a fantastic game. The expansion however.... meh. I am glad it exists, and hope that it gives more life to the base game by exposing more people to it. I’m glad Ares got the license back since it was clear that FFG gave up on the title. I was first in line for the KS campaign. I even got the metal coins add-on and I love the extra bling it adds to the table. But the expansion itself is full of stuff that does not make the game an iota better. Is just a bunch of fluff and extra crap to keep track of, jammed into a game that’s already complex enough. After trying out the new stuff once, I’ve reverted to the core game. I kinda’ like the Gods, and will sometimes pick three at random to sequentially rule over each age. That adds a little diversity that doesn’t weigh the game down. I’m okay with the idea of the new Conan Contest Dice. However, the Conan experience tracker and ‘leveling-up’ (as well as rolling dice for Conan to complete his adventures) is just a needless waste of game time IMO. The game is a strategic war-game at its core, and it’s a really good one. I know some people wanted the game to focus more on Conan as a character, but that’s just not what the game is really about. I actually love the way Conan is such a powerful random factor in the game. He’s like a natural disaster roving the land that can, at best, be slightly directed by the large empires at war in the Hyborian Age. Ares tried to add a little dash of extra Conan stuff, but it just feels like unnecessary sidetracking in the game. The Spies mechanic is... okay. But again, it doesn’t improve the game at all, just more bookkeeping. At least now, I have a good use for the minis!

Thanks @BertD, and happy to try my best at an answer. Everyone paints differently, and for sure some high level professionals paint very differently than me. But from my perspective, the shader step is a huge and essential part of my mini painting. Yes, generally speaking, you paint all of the basic colors you want on the mini, and then you use the ink shader on top of the paint, after the paint has dried. The technique that you use can vary quite a bit. I first learned about mini painting from a video showing someone using the ‘dip’ technique. Literally, a painted mini would be entirely dipped into a cup filled with ink shader, and then, using a paper towel, the excess shader would be wiped off of the mini. I don’t use this technique anymore, but it can be very fast and effective if you are trying to paint 100 matching minis for a big wargame or something. Otherwise, you’d use a brush to ‘paint’ the ink shader onto the mini, letting the shader seep into the cracks and crevices of the sculpture, while keeping the shader from going on too thick. The easiest and most efficient way is to just go over the painted mini entirely with a certain tone of shader. I do a lot of my minis like that. Get the colors in place, and then hit the whole thing with a dark shader. It’s easy and effective. Going beyond that, many painters with more skill and experience will be incredibly artful in how they apply shaders. They might use certain flesh colors to only shade the skin, and other colors for different parts of the clothes, and yet another color for the weapons or other details. For example, they might use a very dark blue shader for some chainmail, and then a lighter brown shader for a fur cape. You can go as simple, or as complex, as you like. You might paint basic colors, apply some shader, and then apply more paint after that, perhaps using the dry-brush technique. Dry brushing is almost exactly what it sound like. It’s a more advanced technique wherein you use a brush that has not been wetted down with water, and get just a small amount of paint on it, and carefully apply very light strokes to get a soft and graduated color effect on certain areas. It is often used to apply highlights. So, you might paint Batman’s cape a basic blue, then apply a dark blue shader to fill in the folds and details, and then after that apply some light blue drybrushing to give the cape some brighter highlights. Be aware that applying shaders will darken the entire paintjob. So, many of us will actually paint the base colors much brighter than we actually want them, knowing that the shader will eventually darken the paint job quite a bit. For me, miniature painting is all about practicing, having fun with it, being proud of the work, not worrying too much about perfection, being open to learning new skills, and getting those minis on the gaming table!!! Best of luck!

Had a couple Conan minis sitting around from the Age of Conan Strategy Game expansion... They are the right size for the Monolith Conan game, so, I figure they can rotate in to change up the miniature options for someone playing as Conan.

One note on the ‘hot water’ method of washing and reshaping the minis: Some minis have a plastic base that is not the same PVC plastic that the mini itself is made from. I don’t know about Batman, but some of the big miniatures from Conan and Mythic Battles are glued to a rigid plastic base. Very hot water can warp some types of plastic! So be aware...

I can share my experience as someone who just started painting minis a couple years ago. I’m no expert, and I paint for the game table, not a display case. I’ve posted a lot of pics here on the Overlord, of the Conan minis I have painted. I still have lots to learn, but I’ll copy and paste a write up that I made for my nephews below: —————————————— Start by watching some simple, beginners tutorials on YouTube. Watching a really advanced painter doing a tutorial on expert-level painting can actually scare you away from trying to paint your own minis. Like watching a high-end cooking show with top chefs will make someone afraid to try cooking! First, many people recommend washing the minis to remove any chemical agents used to get them out of the moulds at the factory. Since the minis often have a bent arm, base, or spear/weapon, I choose to give all minis a quick dip in near boiling water. They don’t need much, just 5-10 seconds or less. It fixes bent shapes and cleans the mini. Let them dry completely. Primer. I use a simple spray can of white primer, like you can get at any hardware store. Make sure that it works on plastic. I occasionally use black primer for specific reasons, but you can’t go wrong with white primer. Spray outdoors! Or in a dedicated workshop with professional ventilation. Consider wearing a simple respirator or face mask. Arrange the minis on a piece of cardboard with even spacing between them all. Spray a coat of primer from all four directions. Many people say to spray just a light coat, but I like a solid primer layer (not TOO thick though!)... My minis look pure white when I’m done, others have the bare plastic color showing through the primer a bit. You’ll figure out what works for you. Humidity and extreme heat or cold will affect how the spray goes on. Follow the directions on the can. Next, get a comfortable place to sit, with good bright lighting. I like a simple table lamp with an adjustable neck so you can place the light right where you want. I also like a ‘white’ fluorescent or LED light, as opposed to many home lamps which are yellowish in color. Get a set of decent brushes with varying tip sizes (including a few very fine small tips) at a craft store, or on Amazon, or wherever. I personally don’t spend very much on brushes, and I feel you can get some good options without spending a lot. But get a decent brand meant for miniatures, not a generic pack of paint brushes. Painting... You need some paint. Most craft store stuff isn’t good enough. Get a set of miniature paints in small bottles. Again, I haven’t ever gone crazy with paint options. You’ll spend $40/$50 for a basic set, but it’ll last for a LONG time if you don’t waste paint. There are a lot of great, affordable pre-packaged paint kits available and I have had success working with a very small assortment of colors. This will force you to start getting good at mixing specific colors you need. A lot of the impact of a nice looking mini comes from choosing good colors. With a basic set of white, black, and primary colors (red, blue, green, yellow) you can mix a HUGE variety of colors. Add in a few other tones and brightness options, and the possibilities are endless!... As for brands, I really like Vallejo. Currently I use the Vallejo Basic USA Colors with 16 colors. Vallejo goes on so silky smooth that I rarely ever ‘thin’ the paint with water. Let dry totally. Like, hours or even a day or so. Next up, the shade layer. Ink Shaders are a thin, watery liquid that comes in different colors and darkness/strengths. Get a basic set. I have an Army Painter set that has been great, and wasn’t too expensive on Amazon. That one set has lasted for 100’s of minis. The real dirty secret with mini painting is that the shading step can do a LOT of the work. Especially for beginners. If you get the basic colors on a mini (the hands and face are flesh colored, clothing it’s own colors, swords and guns another metallic paint color), you’ll be shocked what a simple coat of shader will do! It fills in all the details by gathering as a dark shadow in all the recessed areas of the figure. It is my favorite step of the process. It is like turning the focus ring on a camera, suddenly your mini takes on a lifelike appearance. Once fully dry, spray with Testors Matte (Lusterless) Lacquer. Often called Dulcote. I cannot recommend any other brand. It is worth the cost for the small cans of Testors Dulcote. Look close at what you are buying, you generally want a matte finish, usually not a glossy one. I found that generic varnish and also Citadel Purity Seal can ruin all the work that’s been done. Sorry to say, Citadel makes good paint (although I don’t like the tubs it comes in), but the Purity Seal ruined several of my minis by making them look dull, faded, and frosty. I’ll always stick with Dulcote. One item from Citadel that I CAN recommend: Blood for the Blood God. If you want to add blood to a mini, it’s the best. I put it on after the matte sealer varnish step. Also, Citadel Ardcote is great for making things look glossy and wet. In the end, you’ll figure out what you like, don’t be afraid to make mistakes. It’s a learning process, and you CAN always strip the paint off if you need to start over. If that happens, Engine Degreaser works miracles, and can strip a mini to bare plastic after a 10-15 minute soak and a little scrubbing with a toothbrush. After doing that, don’t put the toothbrush back in your mouth... And don’t eat Tide Pods either. 😉 Always test a solvent before using it on precious minis. Maybe start out by painting some minis from a game you don’t play much anymore. Instead of learning with a game you are really in love with. The best practice for me was painting 100’s of zombies from Zombicide. It’s hard to mess up a zombie! If you do a bad job, just cover it in lots of blood... 🙂 It’s such an enjoyable, relaxing, and rewarding hobby. So have fun and give it a try.... Good luck!

After wrapping up all of my Conan mini painting, I’ve moved on to some of the odds and ends that I’ve got laying about. Tackled the minis from the Viral Outbreak set released by Not-So-Bored Games. It’s a cool set of minis that would work for a variety of games, but, let’s be honest, they are designed for Pandemic Legacy and the original Pandemic game. Nicely designed and sculpted. They are smaller than the Conan minis, so they won’t match other 32mm minis. It was a lesson for me trying to paint modern characters that should look clean and neat, vs. fantasy warriors and monsters which can look more rough and dirty. Definitely makes shading more of an art.

Found this extra pic I took awhile ago. Constantius is in there because I had to repaint him. Bonus points if anyone can identify the three Conan minis from a different Conan board game....

Yeah, that’s news to my ears too. The understanding I had from reading a few comments by Matt and Fred Henry is that Monolith would still be free to make more content for our beloved Conan game in the near-term. But looks like we have to simply hope that they can continue on in 2020. What a huge bummer! This is strange decision by the holders of the Conan IP. I’m sure they have their reasons, and it’d be nice to know more, but this definitely paints the forthcoming Conan products from Shinobi7 in a new light. It’ll be very interesting to see how this all plays out.

Fascinating topic @garbetsp! As a photographer/videographer, I think about light a LOT. Whether I’m filming documentary-style in the field for one of our TV shows, or setting up a complex lighting scheme for our commercial work, making a 2D image ‘pop’ and feel more 3D is always on my mind. This is on my mind to a certain degree as I paint miniatures as well. However, I’ve sorted out how I deal with it in miniature form - and in the end, I pretty much don’t. Lol. I tend to paint the minis as if they are in a neutral studio environment with even, soft, white light coming from all directions. Any shading and highlighting decisions are based solely on which portions of the sculpture are raised vs. which portions are recessed. In my simplistic approach, I do not attempt to ‘paint-in’ a key source light or hard backlighting, for the exact reasons you mentioned; You don’t know what angle the mini will be viewed from, or rather, you can assume the mini will be viewed from a full 360 degrees while moving around a gameboard which has people seated completely around it. This approach just makes it easier for me to bang out minis quickly. I always say that I’m painting for the game table, not a display case. While I’m blown away by the talent and artistry of many professional mini painters, personally I’m not always keen on their end results. Painting-in a lot of shadows and highlights and obsessive amounts of details can actually make a 3D mini look too much like a 2D illustration for my tastes. And, well... it just takes too long for a gamer like me, someone who simply wants to get the minis looking good enough to enhance gaming, not to create art.

On the gaming table pics....

I’m with @Fred Henry on this issue. Being a Conan fanatic, I’d usually say that more product is better. However, I’d really hate to see someone as devoted to the character and his world as Fred is, being treated as just another notch in Crom’s bedpost. Monolith did an amazing job with this game and can claim a fair share of credit for the recent upswing in Conan’s popularity. They’ve made a dream come true for me by creating a fantastic board game which is quite faithful to one of my all time favorite literary characters (and authors), and they’ve introduced a lot of new people to the world of Conan. When Pulposaurus was trying to get their ‘C.R.O.M: Conan: Rise of Monsters’ game off the ground on Kickstarter, I had a lot of doubts. Not the least of which was that totally ridiculous title. While the game creators seemed sincere in their intentions (it was clear that they had an earnest vision of a cool pre-painted mini-based skirmish game), it really seemed as if they were just slapping the Conan name on an existing idea simply because it was a recognizable IP which was readily available. I mean, it did not feel like the game had anything to do with the low-fantasy Hyborian world that REH had built. Perhaps in the late era Marvel comics, or TOR pastiches, we would see Conan leading an army against Thoth Amon at the head of a cadre of high-fantasy monsters, but.... c’mon. The multiple failures of Pulposaurus’ KS campaigns could be an indication of Conan-themed board game over saturation, or just a poorly structured campaign with an unrealistic price-point. Who can say for sure? The danger as I see it is in diluting the brand, and further misrepresenting REH’s creation, simply to make money. I don't know much about the upcoming Shinobi game, and I’ll approach it with an open mind. On the other hand though, if handing out multiple licenses for similar products makes Fred Henry and Monolith feel slighted, that should be seriously considered by Fredrick Malmberg and Cabinet moving forward. If the Shinobi game looks lame or derivative of Monolith’s game, I’d probably ask @Matt John S how I could let Cabinet know my feelings on the matter....

I was going to suggest Cool Stuff Inc., but looks like they've sold out of the dice as well... I've no idea where else you could look for them. You might have to wait for the next Conan KickStarter campaign, which is supposed to happen sometime in 2019?

I haven’t quite finished with him, he needs some touch up and matte varnish, but here’s my Winged Ape mini. Once I finish the villagers that also came with Corinthia, I will have finished every mini in the entire Conan lineup. Whew! That was a helluva lot of painting... 🤪

Khitai wrapped up and made it to the gameboard this weekend! Onward to Corinthia!

Couldn’t agree more... The basic game rules are adequate - other than the issues that can arise from Line of Sight on some game-boards, and determining exactly when a zone is ‘saturated’ with minis. However, the individual scenarios generally NEED at least a bit more clarification, in almost every case. Honestly, my gaming group has had game-breaking questions about perhaps 50% of the scenarios we’ve played. Some are so bad that I’ve had to wonder how the hell the scenario made it to print without the obvious questions being raised during play-testing. The recently released, fan-made, mini-campaign ‘Whispers from Stygia’ is a great example of how to properly write detailed scenario descriptions that address and explain the inevitable questions that can arise during a game. Kudos to the whole team that wrote it, including (I believe), @Ken @drmauric @Neil Amswych@Footballzs @Primeval@Matt John S... Hopefully any new expansions, or even a 1.5 version of the game rules, will include a more concerted effort to answer possible core game/scenario questions within the rules and descriptions. I absolutely love this game, but I’m tired of having to consult BGG every time we play it....

Foo Dogs... woof...

Thanks! Looking forward to playing the Khitai scenarios, the tower board is especially intriguing. I never had a chance to play Age of Conan, although it looked like loads of fun. I did pick up Conan Exiles on PS4, and had a great time playing that for awhile. After slogging through building up my character and crafting a ton of weapons, armor, and even a castle, I’m feeling kinda done with it. If I want to work hard at repetitive tasks and compete with my fellow man for limited resources... well, I already do that every day in real life! 😂

Slow going lately as I’ve been on the road for work a lot, but finally got the Khitan Guards underway. I still need to do some touch ups, matte spray, blood, etc. But I’m fairly happy with them, even if they are much brighter and more colorful than their game tile art.... Foo Dogs on deck, and then Corinthia (villagers = boring, Winged Ape = sweeeeet), and I’ll finally be done with my All-In Conan collection!