Getting Back Into Old Habits

[peteyfrogboy]

My main gripe about gaming with a 6 year old is that she likes to play with the minis a bit more than makes me comfortable. The "tink tink" of lovingly painted metal banging together sets my teeth on edge (though, to be fair, she was being pretty gentle). To rectify this, I decided to paint up some new minis just for our games. I've been scouting out some nice Reaper minis for the PCs, but for my own instant gratification I picked up a box of GW LOTR orcs at the gaming store today. 24 nice Perry-sculpted minis for $20 is a darn good deal in my book. I like them better, stylistically, than the Warhammer orks anyway, so I call it a win all around.

Part of me wants to paint them a meticulously as I have in the past, but the whole point is to not be too invested in them. Instead, I'm going to spray prime them, block in the colors, and magic dip them. I've never used the technique before, but all evidence points to it working well.

The orcs come as two identical sprues of 12 individuals, half with spears and half with hand weapons. I'm planning to paint them as four separate 6-man units, primarily distinguished by clothing color (or, knowing me, pattern) and heraldry. There are enogh shields for everybody to have one, so I'll get to play with lots of different shapes. I'll probably just do fields of stripes or semys or something, since some of the shields are really wacky shapes and wouldn't lend themselves to fancy charge layouts. The only real question is whether I should make each unit the same weapon type or split them up half-and-half.

Comments

[sstormwatch.livejournal.com]

Good idea. You might want to hold off on the small weapons if they are glued on, as they can break off easily, and hurt bare toes when stepped on (as we found out).

My own 6yo son liked to clink ours hard, so we got him pre-painted or simply painted minis of his own to clink and toss around. I think he liked the blocky types best, but each child is different.

[peteyfrogboy.livejournal.com]

Yeah, my main requirements for the PC minis are 1) match the characters and 2) no weapons that stick out. The orcs are plastics, so even though there are lots of sticky-out bits they're all kinda bendy and neither dangerous nor particularly breakable.