Tomorrow the Polar Vortex arrives in Pennsylvania and I think scientists have emphatically stated that there will be no survivors. Or it will be really cold, inconvenient and Tuesday for everybody, not sure which yet. I bet it is somewhere in the middle of both.
In any event, now is a good time to assess what the hell I am doing with the time-sucking vortex that is our beloved hobby, since tomorrow will definitely be about hunkering in, trying to get some more painting done, some more started and maybe, just maybe... finally learning to love myself at the end of it all... (or the beginning?)
OGRE Designer's Edition, now with 100% more colorful edges and Mod Podge.
Speaking of loving myself: I picked up OGRE over the holiday and so, colored all cardboard edges of the punch-out models with colored Sharpies and then glued the pieces all together with matte finish Mod Podge, which is EXACTLY what the doctor ordered there. They came out great, look great. Great! That's a Pro Tip folks, no charge.
I have a ton of Khurasan 15mm on the way, alarmingly ordered before Christmas and yet I have not heard a peep from the company about it at all... but their website was intentionally down over the holiday for them to process orders, so I am not worried, so much as I just want that stuff so I can do 15mm Strange Aeons, where the Lurkers just became 100% bigger!
I also have some forlorn Khador on my desk that I am hell-bent on tackling, with a new sage green and red color scheme. Yes, this means I have been playing Warmachine again and why shouldn't I? It's a damn good game. Still, Star Wars X Wing is a damn good game too and there is no painting required.
Ember Mage WIP will fight the Polar Vortex with her cutsie-cheeks. When I try to do the same thing people yell at me to put my slacks back on.
Finally I have more Super Dungeon Explore to knock out, I dare say I am in the home stretch there on a completed box set.
What else? I have some IG to tend to soon and probably a miniature yard sale in my future in the Spring... too much stuff to tolerate.
Stay warm, stay safe and I'll see you on the other side!
I inadvertently had a game-filled Sunday, and not with the typical hockey and football, which was OK, given the pathetic start to the season for the Flyers.
I went to my buddy
Pete's for some Strange Aeons but when I got there his family was still
playing a Warhammer Historicals Western game, Legends of the Old West... cowboys vs lawmen. The lawmen managed to rustle off the cowboy's herd to a great extent. Interesting to see scatter dice controlling livestock on the board... steering steers? Awesome game, added it to the punchlist.
So, more skirmish through Strange Aeons didn't seem to our collective liking and we tried a board game instead.
Mansions of Madness! (Image courtesy of BGG)
I finally played Mansions of Madness! It
was great and we actually won! This is a big deal, because I've owned a copy for a year and never played it, intimidated by the set up and rules but dying to play it at the same time.
Pete controlled the bad guys, running a maniac around the mansion as the house reacted to our heroic presence... but
instead of attacking us the maniac just took samples of hair or whatever maniacs take, and
kept running back to the basement. The heroes chased after him and explored the
mansion at the same time, solving puzzles, picking up items while detecting clues all while slowly going crazy in the dark.
At one point we swear Mcginn tommy-gunned a maniac to death at the top of the main stairs only to have the maniac reappear later, snatching another lock of hair from the heroes. Pete managed to get the maniac's two offerings to the
elder gods and a Shoggoth appeared in the cellar and rampaged up to the first floor, trying to escape the
mansion. We stopped it at a choke point on the grand staircase, bullets flying everywhere, but most of the damage was done by the old professor's magic spell Shrivel. Since we had discovered the right clue in time, the heroes were able to win the game.
It was just great.
Then I go home for awhile and my cousin Patrick calls, asking
me to come over. I went to his place and I showed him Star Wars X Wing for about 30 minutes, which he did not seem enthused about at all, which was odd, given we fledged together in the same Star Wars nest as kids. That, and most of the miniature-game tactile overhead that boardgamers resist in mini games seems missing from this game. Perhaps he is better at staying conservative with a few games instead of being promiscuous, game-wise, as I seem to be these days. I think he isn't convinced about the fact it's just dog fighting.
A short but legit session done, I packed it up and we discussed Memoir '44, some of the missions from the new Equipment Pack (which is awesome) but Pat and his wife Colleen got Elder Sign for Christmas so we stopped fooling ourselves.
After their sons went to bed we played Elder Sign.
After being behind the Doom Track for most of the game, we finally caught up with 8 Eldar Signs at the 11th hour. We then managed to seal Yig away before it awoke but it was a close, hard-fought win. Nobody died either! That was some kind of record for me, for this game and the number of different games in 24 hours.
So
in one day, three Fantasy Flight Games were played, which means something, just not sure what.
I've been saying for the last few months how impressed I've been with Fantasy Flight games, as Elder Sign & X Wing managed to displace a long-established habit of steady Memoir '44, 40k and Warmachine. Perhaps it was due? Perhaps it is part of this complete breakfast.
Anyway, it was a blast and maybe I'll have a review of X Wing up soon.
Here is my Frankenstein's monster of sorts. I painted this model in 1990 and found it the other day in a random box of old painted figs. While the painting is dated, it still works, so I just mounted it on a base which I matched to the other SA models that I have, with matching paint and grass tufts.
The model is a Mewlip from the old Mithril range for LOTR. I forgot that I added tattered rags to the model, which I remembered when I did a GIS on it. So yeah, tattered rags. And purple ones at that. Ahem.
Anyway, still a creepy model and glad it found its way to Strange Aeons. Now for the heroic scale pitchforks and torches...
Good Lord. Okay, got my kids Super Dungeon Explore for
Christmas (shhhhhhhh), nonchalant about getting the minis together and painted before
December 25th.
What the hell was I thinking.
So, two nights of assembly down… all-in-all, not bad on that
front but damn that’s a lot of figs. I needed 2 tubes of super glue and a thumb-sized cake of greenstuff to get it all together, which isn't bad... a testimony to how well engineered this figs are, which is REALLY awesome. Total assembly time: 4 hours.
I had to dip some models in boiling water to bend them into position: Ember Mage, some Kobold spears, Barbarian axe, Palidan sword and parts of the dragon. Total correction time: less than 15 minutes.
I’ll be using my own modified dip method for this, it’s the
only shot at getting it all done.
Over the next few nights, cleaning, some gap filling, soap
and water then prep for priming.
I have a 10 year old daughter and an 8 year old son. We like playing games together and naturally, the boardgames and cardgames are a big part of solid quality time, way more than what the Wii can manage.
My son in particular enjoys modified Memoir '44 and Space Hulk. My daughter will play anything.
So, with Christmas coming I have 2 frontrunners for game ideas. I realize that some adaptation may be required for either.
Super Dungeon Explore (SDE) may be really fun given the simple goals and familiar aesthetics of the game. My brother-in-law and cousin are also coordinating with me on getting the same game for their kids of similar age, the idea being they can all play when they get together. SDE seems to appeal to all the parents involved.
My #2 pick is the new Mice and Mystics game. It seems a more playful game that delivers story at the expense of the boss battles of the usual crawl; this is perhaps more risky as it may make it a ridiculous hit or still-enjoyable miss. My kids are readers and would probably enjoy acting out the story... so I give points to the experiential mechanic of the game while wondering if the replay is really any different than SDE. The other parents in on this plan may not be cut out for a rodent dungeon master, as far as shepherding their kids through this game.
Anybody have any practical opinions on these games for family night? Other options?
Apparently the best time to catch up on painting is during the biggest hurricane/storm cell to hit the Eastern seaboard of the United States. We've been rocking and rolling all day and the worst is due in between now (8:39PM Eastern) and 2AM Eastern. We are in the eye of the storm right now, I think.The lights are flickering so we'll see how long we have before we go to flashlights but that is an easy tradeoff considering millions are without power.
Anyway, here is a WIP shot of some GW ghouls, intended for Strange Aeons. I knocked out most of the painting for this group today, needs some detailing and smoothing.
This week I picked up probably the most fun kit I've "tackled" in awhile... a waterline rowboat from Hamm River models.
I got this boat for a 4'x4' terrain board I had built that has a
jetty/dock and shoreline. Seems appropriate to have some Threshold agents set up
in a boat if the ocean is their deployment zone. At very least, I'll use it to dress the scene the
right way.
I picked up the Hamm River rowboat on Ebay for US$8.00 plus shipping, total US$10, not a bad deal at all for what you get. It was well-packed in a padded envelope, arrived on time and minimal assembly/paint is required. There are 3 styles of rowboat available (collect 'em all!)
It is a one-piece, open-mold resin hull with what looks like laser-etched balsa oars. Thwarts for the inside of the boat are plastic sprue. I simply cleaned the mold lines at the bottom of the boat and spray-primed everything white. Use a sharp Xacto to trim the wood sprue away from the oars... CAREFULLY.
I did two coats of Citadel Graveyard Earth inside the boat, brushing the same direction each coat. I painted the thwarts separately in a faux wood style by using a ragged, long-haired flat brush, having backbrushed the wet paint (one coat) into stripes, like the grain of wood planks. After they dried I trimmed them and glued them down, checking the clearance of 2x2" bases in the boat. Perfect!
The hull was just a wash of flow enhancer and Sage Green craft paint over the primer, dried on wax paper. The dried, pooled green paint on the bottom even looks good as a battered hull.
From unpackaging to finish and placement on the table it was probably an hour of effort, if that and the boat holds two 28mm figs perfectly.
I give the kit an A for any Strange Aeons players who want a solid waterline boat for their games. I'll probably pick up more for no other reason than how much fun they are to put together. I also want to get their $25 # 270 Freight pack, which has 60 pieces... that's a fantastic deal.You can get most of these items on Ebay from what I've seen.
My suggested boat rules for Strange Aeons: Row Boat
Capacity: 2 standard-based (2") Human/Humanoid models. One model may roll vs Dexterity to row, each Action. If passed, move boat that model's full Movement distance. If failed, go half Movement speed. I'd give it Constitution 7 and 3 wounds before it sinks. Swimming models use an action to swim half Movement and water gives a 6+ save for concealed silhouette. Boat grants 6+ cover save to models in the boat (even on land!) All embarked models count weapons as Ready when boat is in water.
There are many ideas to consider for boats in Strange Aeons: Fighting amphibious models in water next to the boat, capsizing, weather/tide, fighting in the boat! Have fun with it and share any ideas you have!
Seen here is an unlit and lit scratch-built Imperial Bastion. There are 10 Valhallan IG in there for scale. I think the back parapet will either be connected to an anti-air tower or maybe a Skyshield. The lights are railroad lights powered by a train power supply. I have two more lights to wire up, a blinking red light at the door and a steady light in the rear.
L to R: Prof. Forsythe, Agent Connery, Agent "Scarface" Petri
Pictured is my completed starting 15BP Threshold team. First, there is Professor Forsythe III, a civilian armed with .22 revolver. Next is my Character, Agent Connery. He has a bowie knife, twin .45's and two skills: Lucky and Two Fisted (Ranged). Finally we have Agent Giuseppe "Scarface" Petri, armed with .45, bowie knife and Tommy Gun. Agent Petri also has the Lucky skill.
Of note: Agent Petri was a pretty badly cast fig. There was so much molten flash on the left side of his face and shoulders that I gave up trying to file and shape his face and just painted it as a mass of scar tissue. I think it worked out ok. I'll get a pic of that up soon, maybe.
With the risen moon, the Cosmic Well churned with power as the statue of
the great one peers into the lapping abyss... and agent Connery
realizes he's screwed.
The Ritual can now commence. I finished a rehab/repaint of an old GW vac formed foam terrain piece. You can read about the earlier start here.
Here is a pic of original, courtesy of the interwebs:
And here is the final product, a complete repaint with detailing and finishing with flocks, Silflor ivy and scratch built bushes :
You can see I carved out the skull on the dias. I needed to make room for the Cthulhu statue to fit inside. I figured the leftover mess was a good swirling maelstrom so I painted it as such with tones of purple and fashioned it a well of infinity something something. I added jems inside of the glyphs already carved into the well to set it off, similar to what I used on the big statue here and the objective markers I made earlier. As mentioned, the Cthulhu statue can fit inside, the ID of the well is a match for the OD of a GW circle base.
The statue on the perch...
... or statue on the well. We can use it as a turn counter, rotating the statue to each of 12 glyph gems to track the game turns.
I also painted what was left of the interior plaster to show old signs of dark worship.
Agent Connery has a bad feeling about this... good thing he's Heroic, since he's going to need it
I dug out an old GW foam-molded terrain piece I inherited from my buddy Wil. I'm not doing a whole how-to now but I wanted to share WIP shots. I basically cleaned it, trimmed a bunch of stuff off of it to make room for 2" bases, spray painted it with water-based spray paint and went about making it look best I could with an extensive repaint. More later about that but on with the pics...
The seething cauldron/portal/whatever
A plastic Cthulhu statue I bronzed and added gem eyes to. Honestly, he kinds looks awake right here...
Here's a tester I completed for a Strange Aeons objective counter. I simply used a bag of Mini Mythos that I cleaned up with an Xacto and mounted it on GW 2" bases. I then primed it black. I underpainted it a hard contrast style with some off-white/light grey paint and then some copper paint on top.
After that it got a layer of Verdigris water based stain to tone down the yellow in the copper paint and add some hard lining. To finish it off the paint I added some Model Color Verdigris glaze which I allowed to pool and then rubbed off while wet with my thumb and some flat brushes.
To top it off and make it more mystical-looking I added some 4mm costume jewels for eyes. Seen here are purple/orange/yellow gems. I also got some pale yellow/green ones to add to some others.
I suppose this sounds like a lot of work but all told I probably spent about 20 minutes on him start to finish, not including dry time.
I wanted to do some conversions for the Strange Aeons Night Gaunts, featured in both H.P. Lovecraft's writings and his childhood nightmares, which were probably like this:
I knew I wanted to use Legion of Everblight Harriers since the body type looks like a pretty good match to the illustration in the Strange Aeons rulebook and I already had two Harriers thanks to my buddy Finn at Spindango Fundulation. My buddy JWoolf over at Headwound Minis gave me some GW Bloodletter heads when I decided they'd work best. Together with some snips, greenstuff and some sculpting you get this:
The sell will come with the painting. I haven't decided to either be faithful to the description of a face that is a featureless void or just simply do a monochromatic paint scheme. A featureless void would need some gap filling to mute the facial detail, which I happen to like.
In terms of the game itself, 2 Nightgaunts are 16 points of mayhem and can each Destroy Weapon, which is good in-game. They have Parry and a good enough CC bonus (+2) that starting agents fighting them solo will have to literally be very lucky to survive. They should count themselves lucky if the worst that happens is that they have to re-arm in the re-equip phase. Oddly, buying an agent a Meat Cleaver for 1BP isn't a bad first purchase choice after other skills as the CC bonus matches the Nightgaunt's and cancels out the monster's Parry with its own. If you have that and agents fight together against it the good guys may pull ahead on dice, on average. A bowie knife armed, A3 starting agent would win 1/3 of the time in a straight fight I think these creatures and zombies will be the first gribbly things an agent sees after Cultists so better be ready.
This was my wish list for next Edition, prior to my seeing the “Leaked” 6th
Edition ruleset on Scribd: I sorta see advance deploy, deep striking and the like becoming
more strategic and less tactical, more like how it works in Apocalypse, when
staring at it from the current core rule set. I think what I have been discussing
with my buds, our wish list of changes, would be for 40K to have more “free” usable
items to really create plays. As it is, there are so many things that 40K
offers for games that are too damn risky because the detriments usually crush
what little benefit pays out if there is success. When I say risk I mean what
seems unfair risk. It is a usability issue disguised as a balance problem. Case
in point, Deep Strike. It's almost a joke. So many races are offered it and so
few can use it in characterful ways. If a race can't realistically use it
without wearing space marine armor or riding a spore into the ground then keep
it out of my differences for my points totals and give me something I can use
outside of buying yet another model that gives me the board effect I want in
Deep Strike, etc.
Then today my boy John sends me the “Leaked” 6th Edition ruleset on Scribd. I’m sure many of you have seen it already and have
decided if it is real, has merit, etc. I ate my sandwich and started reading
that vehicle damage table since, you know, that's practically part of my IG
codex.
Then I read the rest of it.
Here are some observations from a pedestrian player to his immediate friends
at all levels who play, not the homeless tourney hookers. I’m only interested in
changes that may bring faster, more conclusive and less slogging play, which
better translates to a good story, so I like the following that I see in this leaked, possibly-real document:
1.Evasion and Patch Up are interesting. More later but I want to say that first.
2.Airborne, page 47. That is basically jump troops
that never have to land and take terrain tests but still benefit from terrain.
Finally in the spirit of some models and fluff, dare I say intuitive representation?
3.Movement, assault and shooting is the turn order
now. This I liked when I heard it before but consensus was it seemed to
indicate a fan-produced fraud. Still, this seems solid design. Not sure about
authenticity either way but I think it has merit when stacked with Evasion,
revised Deep Strike, Reserves. More below.
4.Flyers have rules now as do Agile for large
creatures and Eldar Titans. Funny to see them cited in a main rulebook, pg 54
of this leaked thing. Yup, Titans, Flyers and Superheavies are all in this set
of main rules, so they are now peeled from Apocalypse and exist in the core
rules. This seems right, now that I think of it, since GW just went wild
releasing plastic flyers now and superheavy kits over the past year.
5.Wow, reserves are drastically changed, to the
tune of resource management: You have a pool of dice for all units in reserve.
You can allocate up to 3 dice to each unit and use those dice for making
reserve rolls, in effect choosing who gets better odds of showing up. Pg 137.
6.Deep Strike has changed. You can deep strike
units outside of 18" of an enemy and they just stick the landing? Win. If you
try within 18" you do the scatter roll bit. Deep striking units that
successfully land 12" away from a unit or close can trigger a Defensive
Fire action from that threatened unit. Sweet.
7.Strategems and fortifications are in this too,
which originated from City Fight and Apocalypse.
8.Weathered Bastion pg 147 sounds exactly like the bastion I built years ago but never finished. Now we have stats for it and it's
official, assuming this is all legit. Open top, troop capacity, gun ports, points cost, blah, blah, blah. At last, some fluff on the table outside a Space Marine with new style cape. And I didn't need VDR to have it.
9.To my Nid player bro John: If Evasion is
true, your Nids just became a level of faster we've both been complaining
about. Add in how Deep Strike and Reserves works with all the assorted features
and I think your army got a HUGE boost. Think
about it this way. According to these rules, you have better say in what
happens with reserves. Now, putting things in reserve may not be a last resort
but instead a strong first tactical choice… a universal one. Deep strike is way
more accurate which is great for flanking your units via Spore or whatever, you
can drop stuff right along board edges now with no fear of scattering off the
edge... that's more real estate for you to use in a game. But Evasion may help
you the most since that is army-wide and free. If it affords you even a bit
more protection, it's really good. I do believe Evasion is real, since they put
shooting before assaults now. There needs to be another layer to the
shooting/hitting dynamic just because of that alone. But with the shift in
order of assaults then shooting really may not change my IG army much, it changes Nids
a lot more; I see this simple swap of order as just making things more
decisive/conclusive: I'll get more shots off in general and that may cack units
more solidly but then and you'll close faster and kill quicker. But if all of
that is true, it favors your army most, since I still have to shoot the
same-sized army, which is now faster, where I am not as much more shooty in the
same way... over what I'm betting is a shorter amount of time.
10.Gotta tell you though, if these are the rules
for Flyers then Santa got my letter. I have waited 15 years for these rules, at
least between Forge World rules and house rules. The Vulture,
Valkyrie/Vendettas will be super fun to use, acting like strafing aircraft and
skimmers, evac'ing and acting like they are CAP's, as they should behave. It would be interesting if winged Hive Tyrants, Lords of Change and the like could act as flyers or
something.
So, the question stands, until the rulebook comes out. Will next edition be Hug Wolves and smelling people being hugged? Or will it be cat language butchery and insane Kenny Loggins five hole fatalities? I want the latter.
Agent Rehdshurt, who no longer has an issue with being too old for that shit.
So my progress is slow. Sick kids take rightful priority but I managed to pin and assemble the damnable Daemonic Hounds last night. These models are from an old GW box set I had never built. What a pain in the ass these models are. But they look good and as my 7 year old son pointed out, two of the monster puppies look like they are biting the good guy's face, so it's all good.
I'll be adding some putty tonight and then priming tomorrow if the weather cooperates. I'll be traveling for work this week and bringing these models to paint in my hotel room since I'll be by myself for half the week. Hopefully I can get them done.
Pete and Trish toiled through the weekend detailing the rooms and adding furniture to their impressive mansion for our games of Strange Aeons. Here are the awesome results so far. I think they have some doors and small details left on the top floor but it's very much there. Enjoy!
