It Still Only Counts as One! = MESBG Mumak

 This purchase is 'wife approved' as I tend to energetically paint and use/display MESBG models.

  It's darker than this IRL.

I saw a youtube post titled "Mumak painted in only 3 hours." Maybe noteworthy for him, but as a dad, that was all the time I was intending to paint it in anyway....

I took over 3 hours in the end, but that was mostly due to the base, which was pretty fiddly.

 

==Recipe for those interested: (I tend to refuse to paint more than 3 layers...)==

Basecoat: Black Bunnings spray can all over

Body: Eshin (dark grey) drybrush, then Dawnstone (mid grey) drybrush

Howdah cloth: Doombull brown (red brown) undercoat, then Khorne red, then "something scarlet" light drybrush/highlight

Wickerwork: Rhinox (dark brown) undercoat, then Steel Legion Drab (pale brown) drybrush, then Ushabti bone drybrush

Wood Supports:  Rhinox (dark brown) undercoat, then Steel Legion Drab (pale brown) drybrush, Seraphim Sepia (yellow-brown) wash

Tusks: Ushabti bone, with Agrax Earthshade (brown) wash near the base of the tusks

Ropes: Ushabti bone, Agrax Earthshade wash occasionally if I didn't show the gap between ropes

Scenic Base: Lots of mucking about (tm)

Painting the ropes took the longest time and the base was a pain in the bum. I planned to do warpaint on its face and add grass tufts to the base but I went over my time limit and stopped at 'table ready.' I also may do some home-made spikes/ropes on the tusks (with hairy string and spikes made from ends of cocktail skewers).

Imposing a time restriction (and accepting a little less polish) and a 'can't buy new minis until last purchase is done' has lead to incredible productivity. I've painted easily 650+ minis this year.

 

I guess it still counts as 1 mini painted though. My MESBG total is now 431 for 2023.

The random minis are for a game set up to play with my wee lad. He wanted to play "wargs and trolls."

He enjoys playing the Third Age mod (free) to Medieval Total War 2. I mention this in case anyone is interested as MTW2 costs about $10 and runs on a potato PC. It's basically big battle games (100s, 1000s of troops) in Middle Earth and a must-have for any LotR wargamer.

For a more personal game (where you fight as a character FPS style, but lead a warband of 30-100) I suggest The Last Days (again, a mod) for Mount and Blade Warband. It is cheap and will likewise run on a potato laptop.

I also shelled out for an official army book, tired of printing out my own lists. My son has spent ages looking through it, enjoying working out the values of characters and monsters.

MESBG is lauded as being far more forgiving than 40K/AoS (or actually any other GW title) in not needing a library of rulebooks, supplements and codexes: merely needing a $90AUD rulebook and a $80 army book. It does have all the factions but man, $170 just to play the game without even any minis...    ....and we call this "good." What's the strategy called - 'anchoring'? 

For less than the price of this rulebook; I just bought a discount ($70 down from $130) starter box of Carnevale. 

240 page rulebook. 2 warbands of minis. A full table of terrain. All the dice and bits. A gondola!

Excel Sheet & The Dad Budget

I've got an Excel list of every mini and project in my shed. I list if: 

(a) do I need minis (b) do I need to paint minis I have (c) do I have rules....   ...and a note on 'how much' $$$ it will take to complete them, ranked by cost. 

It helps when prioritizing purchases/spotting sales - i.e. BFG and Carnevale ranked in the $100-200 range, so when Carnevale dropped down into the sub-$100 bracket I pulled the trigger. I've also colour coded projects by time commitment. 

This leads to wife approval (i.e. regular projects painted and bargain miniatures) which increases my budget (both shed time and $$$)!