Stripping paint and gaming on a budget.

So. Saving up for a wedding.  Add in a suprise dental bill, student debts a credit card bill etc etc... And suddenly I have joined thousands of broke gamers out there.  No deterred, I decided to focus on doing what I could which didn't cost anything.

Firstly!  Having suffered for too long with a piss poor carry solution (Namely a shoebox filled with sponge) I decided to do two things:

 Firstly I removed my oldest Imperial Guard army from its old double case.  A Christmas present from GW in my days on the line.  It's basically an old mech based snow themed force, bad paint job.  Time to retire it for recycling.  Big bonus is a nice big case which can hold more than I have now.  Also, I managed to order a tray for that bloody Monolith, which pockets for two Crypt barges or Doomsday Weapons should I feel adventurous.

 But the old army had a total of 10 chimera, 2 Chimadon (wiki it!), a Hellhound and more besides.  Horrible paint job.  That would need to go. 

So after consulting my gaming colleagues, I learned not 1 but 2 methods!

Firstly, using washing up detergent, one method is to continually saturate the figures in a bucket of warm soapy water, continually replacing the cold water with more warm and more soap.  The process isn't dangerous but takes time.  Something I sadly don't have.  Usual time required 4/5 hours.
 

 That wasn't going to work with my schedule!  However another slightly more dangerous method involving a local specialty called Blå Spirit (Blue Spirits or Blue Isopropylene (sic) ).  Soak the figures in a bucket for 15 or so minutes and bring out for a scrubbing.  Be warned though!  It effectively reduces the paint into a liquid state for scrubbing and washing off but it will spray around and it will dry off again effectively "moving" the paint.  So.  Do it outside, with gloves and dirty clothing.  The good news is, its bloody effective.

Sadly its also expensive at 6 GBP a bottle.

 Meanwhile, I discovered some more odds and sods that were ready for priming and painting.  This line up of characters are next on my list.
 

 And so are these guys!  I might have mentioned them before, but not too long ago I acquired some Desert War 8th Army guys made for WW2 Games, in this case Bolt Action, though Battlegroup by Warrick Kinrade looks interesting.  A whole platoon for around 15 potatoes from Warlord miniatures.  Not bad.
 

Speaking of Warlord Miniatures and Bolt Action.  A preview of the upcoming Armies of France and her allies has appeared on the internet.  Most importantly (well to me living in Norway) is this pic of the Norwegian Defence Forces.  My dream of reenacting the short but not unheroic war in Norway is coming closer!

Thats all for now, but rumours of my demise are largely inflated...

R