WIP Wednesday - last of 2015

Hope you are having a good Festive Season. Just a quick post to wish you well and show that I've managed to find a little time for hobbying via the paint brush over the last week or so. A certain Enchanter from Studio Miniatures (officially out in January I believe) and an old Games Workshop Necromancer. Both to bolster my options in Frostgrave or anything else really.

Better pictures when they are properly finished off.

Have a good Hogmanay and I'll see you in the New Year.

Into The Dungeon

The party step into the Dungeon. This is the start of the Never-ending Dungeon.

Outlaw Gang

DMH Stranger second from right

There are a lot of low brims in this set.

At long last my first Wild West figures are complete. 9 are from Black Scorpion Miniatures "Tombstone" set and one is the resin "Stranger" from the Dead Man's Hand \ Wargames Illustrated Civilians set (the rest obviously sitting waiting in their box). I keep hearing people on forums going on about how huge the Black Scorpion figures are, but they don't look too out of place with the DMH figure (or the others I have).

Basing was a bit of a challenge. I was using Vallejo Desert Paste for the first time. I have their Black Lava paste which is great, but the desert sand one is much finer, more liquid.and quite (too!) bright. In the end (and this is more for my future reference than any recommendation) I baes the base with GW Desert Sand, brushed the paste on and gave it a dilute wash of Vallejo Sepia. Then a patchy application of diluted Army Painter Dark tone was applied, a dry brush of a couple of patches mid grey and then dry brushed the entire base with Army Painter Skeleton Bone.

It is good to have my own figures to play Western games with now. I still have the citizens, some Mexican Bandito's and some Cowboy Orc's in the pile, but they will have to wait their turn.

As a side note, this group goes to show how depressing parts of my year has been. They are my first painted figures since the end of April and first 28mm figures of 2015. Hopefully next year allows for more energy and opportunity!

Chariot Racing - practice laps

A quick couple of pictures to assure you that I've not given up this whole blogging lark!

Last week I was helping MacSver playtest Bread & Circuses Chariot Racing to be released by Irregular Wars. As it is play test time for the rules I won't\can't go into specifics, but the race had some furious action with riders attacking\whipping each other, spin out, mobs of spectators running onto the track and desperate catch-up actions. Looks like it will be great fun when released and I'm looking forward to a game or two more.

Details on the Chariots here on MacSver's blog.

IHMN#4: Cathedral Battle

Vital information has been tucked away inside one of a trio of books hidden in the Cathedral grounds. One tome is in the graveyard, one at the Cathedral altar and one down in the catacombs (accessible fron inside the building and via an outside crypt.

Lord Curr wants the information in the book, whilst Queen Victoria will lead her company to prevent it falling into enemy hands. But will they find the books, never mind the correct one?...

Building at the Edge of The World

Before and After

This wee project was an experiment after 2 consecutive thoughts (yes I know, me too!).

A Walk In The Park

A pleasant sunny day in the city park.

X-Wing Under the Stars

With both battle venues wash with the debris of construction at the moment MacSver suggested moving to his conservatory for a this weeks game. Under the twinkling starts of the night sky what better game to play than X-Wing.

Points were set at 100pts. MacSver delved into his packed box (he'd been busy at the Starship Emporium since my last game) and constructed a force of an A-Wing, Headhunter, YT-2400 Freighter and a festival of missile options. I went with 2 Tie Fighters, an Advanced Tie and a Tie Phantom.

Tie fighters rush in to meet accurate fire from their targets.

Frostgrave Run Through

Looking at my blog feed the Frostgrave posts are starting to come thick and fast. Obviously MacSver was noticing as well as he suggested we give the ruleset a tentative poke this week. So like so many others, the first FG post is up.

The first outing for my new Deep Cut Studios cobble mat.
All buildings\ruins are Dave Graffam Kits.

Gunfight at the Battleshed Coral

This week I had the pleasure of attending MacSver's Battleshed with an additional first time visitor in the form of Jimboba from Warchest, who had decided to take a break from updating his excellent solo wargaming\collecting\painting blog to travel down the road and play a game of Dead Man's Hand.

No great scenario, just a 3-way shootout (Lawmen, Outlaws and Desperados) with the vague (and pretty much ignored) objective of the central town gallows. Having fun and introducing Jimboba to the game were the main objectives of the evening, and I think they were achieved all round. Jimboba didn't even grumble about it not being 15mm (too often).

3 Outlaws prepare to fire out the windows
at an exposed Lawman.

Outlaws desperately try to defend the Undertaker's
from the advancing line of the Sheriff's man.

"Grandpaw", the oldest Desperado in town, shows his
experience by sneaking up to the saloon bar doors and
blasting the outlaw within with his shotgun. Ouch!.

VSF Card Buildings

Earlier in the year I had realised that I was very unhappy with my terrain options for "In Her Majesty's Name" games. They all seemed to be in the woods with maybe a single house or ruin. So I decided to make some Victorian Sci-Fi style buildings (I'm not a fan of the "Steampunk" label!).

I've been working on these for a while now (the final building featuring in a couple of  WIP Wednesday posts).

Adv_Sobh: The Good Barbarian(s)

The Barbarians are travelling through a wooded area when they hear a cry for help. A tree has fallen onto a human archer in a clearing and pinned her to the ground.

Ardaric and Fredrick Redmist move to help and try to move the branch enough for her to escape.

The rest of the party fan out. Just past the clearing edge anything could be lurking with intent...

IHMN#3: A Trip to Obsession

Lord Curr's dog, Dakota has been found safe and sound after sailing away last battle and is residing in the Sheriff's Offices (at the bottom of the above picture) awaiting collection.. Unfortunately, the secret plans secreted into his collar were also found and a local official is waiting for Lord Curr to collect, from the scaffold in the centre of town.

Bombs Away!

Last night saw a 3 player game of WWI Wings of Glory hosted by MacSver and also attended by Bill. It was decided that a scenario would be most fun, and a bombing run at Cambrai was picked.

IHMN #2: Breakthrough the Badlands

The scene is set. Lord Curr's Company has reached the edge of Scorpion Hollow with their transport, a scheduled Ironclad boat, due to leave at it's appointed hour. but Victoria and her Palace Guard have moved to intercept.

WIP Wednesday

New terrain project starts up. The graveyard was a set up I've been wanting to do for a long time. A similar long desired terrain area is a public park.

I have several 6"x 6" thick card squares from an old board game (Cluedo Super Sleuth in fact) that I am going to use for basing different areas of the park. Grass areas will be joined by sections of formally planted beds and displays.

I also have a nice scratch built wall I purchased from Ebay years ago that is getting a re-paint.

Graveyard Finished

It taken (quite) a while to complete, but the graveyard for my Cathedral is finally completed.

WIP Wednesday

Does 2 weeks in a row make it regular?

The main structure is complete with steampunk pipes etc fitted. The inside is just a standard texture option set to "mirrored" in the printer settings. Floor level is at ground level, hence the steps down. The walls have a layer of mounting board in between them. It feels quite sturdy.

I've cut out the bottom half of the windows on the side door for shooting out of, and the door has been opened up, with the hinged side only cut through the first 2 layers, leaving the inner card surface to hinge. Inside I've only fitted one piece of equipment, but another will probably follow.

Now onto sorting out the roof.

Deep Cut Studios Cobble Mat

Since starting playing "In Her Majesty's Name" I'd started to become unhappy with my terrain options for playing in that period, having too many similar "old house in the woods" tables set up.

Having a decent looking surface on the table was a stumbling block. My fantasy town games had made do with an earthy ground in the past, and I'd tried to do some cobbled streets on the reverse of my modern roads (made from vinyl tiles) but the edges curl annoyingly. I've looked round the web at some home made cobble tables, but on pricing it up the costs were not that different, and with so many other projects on my list I decided to take the plunge and get a cobbled cloth mat from Deep Cut Studios. My gaming table is 6' x 3' and I really only play skirmish games so I went for the 3' x 3' option.

WIP Wednesday

Don't know if this will become a regular feature, but I'm shamelessly stealing Airfix's "workspacewednesday" Facebook thread.

In this case it's a Dave Graffam Steampunk Building #1 with accessible interior. Walls are reinforced with mounting board between the printed 210gsm card textures. I've bought the Fat Dragon Games RavenFell Steam Items to furnish the insides. Not exactly sure how I'll be doing the roof yet...

Claymore 2015: Dungeonbowl and Dinosaurs.

The first Saturday in August usually presents the Edinburgh Wargames Show, Claymore, and once again Arabiansquire and myself were in attendance. Now different people go to these shows for different reasons. We are there to play a few games, a bit of shopping and a look around. Pretty much in that order. I'll just say now that the looking around section didn't mange much more than a quick peek as we walked past, so I'm afraid if you will have to surf elsewhere for the pictures  of the lovely set ups.

WWI Wings Of Glory

Last night MacSver hosted a demo game of the World War One version of Wings Of Glory for me. First game was played with the basic rules before adding in the damage standard rules and altitude change rules for a second game.

My Fokker Dr1 tries to shake off MacSver's Sopwith Camel

For those not familiar it is a dogfight game, with immediate similarities to X-Wing.

Moves are secretly predeclared, but unlike X-Wing they are preset 3 at a time. I had wondered how this would compare to the X-Wing single pre-order system, but the movement distances are slower so the movement still works well and means that there is a chance that engagement can break off briefly.

Another nice rule is that, aside from some special "critical" effects, the amount of damage sustained by a plane is unknown to the opponent. Damage is not a dice roll up picked up from a deck of damage cards. It is possible to pick up a card with zero damage - signifying a hit but the bullet passing through the fuselage with no real effect I suppose.

My battered Fokker, full of holes and with an injured pilot
managed to get behind the British plane and make a few telling shots.

Critical damage can range from stuck rudders to injured pilots and damaged engines. All these have the effect of limiting your options for manoeuvres and action. With the planes (certainly at the rule level we played at) only having movement and firing along a front arc, you really get into the groove of the twisting and turning to get a shot in, being mindful that if your opponent gets a shot in at the same time in a head-to-head position you may well come off worse - which happened to me a couple of times! As ever, things become tense and tactical toward the end as the mystery damage cards stack up and then push to get in a shot without being shot yourself becomes all the more crucial.

We had missed out some of the standard rules ass so as not to overload my poor brain, and there are advanced level rules to add if required. It is a very enjoyable game, and recommended.

Rules, Rules Everywhere...

Like so many other happy gamers I received my Frostgrave nickstarter the other week. rulebook and miniatures look lovely but more importantly the ruleset not only looks like it will be simple to play but the different magic schools which are so core to the game will give a great variety in playing styles, which is just as I'd hoped when I'd taken the plunge. But there are starting to be quite a few blog articles scattered round the web about these so I won't go on.

Also creeping in under a dusk tide was the release of Ganesha Games new naval ruleset "Galleys and Galleons". I've been waiting fo rthis set for a good while now to apply to my collection of Wizkids Pirates ships.

The classic Ganesha 3 dice risk\reward activation system is still in place here with a few tweaks. The ships also have that familiar Quality, Combat & special rule makeup from other titles. There is a nice mechanic of using other coloured dice in the 3 dice pool to show damage to the ship without the need for any book-keeping. Movement is automatic (& free) with actions only being able to tweaks heading or speed from the base movement speed, which is defined by the heading of the ship in relation to the wind direction at that moment.

As with other titles, there is a basic roster section for your ships (and sea monsters should you wish), and a campaign section.

At the moment my hobby time is very limited so no testing has been done, but I will need to get a couple of ships out for identification, get my landlubber head round some of the terminology (mostly ship\rigging types) and have a trial run through soon as these rules look like a winner.

Worthless Valuables

No gaming or real hobby activity at the for the last few weeks (or the next few either). The Hobby shed is being re-assigned and the grand flit is on. It's not all doom and gloom mind you as a new hobby shed (which will need a new title once open for business) has been built next to it for valuable gaming space, but moving the accumulated gubbins from the last 7+ years is a slow process with many thought processes. It's not so much the moving actually, it's the sifting.

Materials of proposed projects that never saw fruition, of the boxes of junk that "look like they would be handy" but have sat for years, early paint dobbed polystyrene terrain that was used in the early days but has been superseded since - bin filler now.

The other similar, but more controversial cull is of nostalgic old hobby items that it seems a shame (if not crime) to throw out but in reality have no value. The list includes White Dwarf issues from the 80's (when it was a roleplaying magazine), second hand D&D red & pink box sets (with crappy dice) and even a handful of 1977 Ral Partha wood elves. All in the bin after much soul searching. Most these things have either been give to me by other folk clearing out or as parts of ebay job lots sold by people desperate to get rid of them but can't find anybody interested.

"You threw WHAT away?"

It is is difficult - I've tried to give these away for free at shows. They get picked up by viewers with big bright smiles. "I remember this!", "played this so much","check this out - fantastic!" are oft heard phrases, but when offered for free the answer is always "Erm, no thanks, you're OK." and a swift exit. When presented on the web they're not even worth the postage it would seem.

Some things have just had their time. No-one wants to play with old featureless lumps of lead or store magazines that print adventures for games that no-one plays. And I don't have the space to be their custodian, so they must go.

I doesn't mean I have to be happy about it though...

Frostgrave Nickstarter

I can't remember if I'd seen a resisted this before or not, but I've gone and joined the many other souls in pre-ordering "Frostgrave" (soon out from Osprey) vie the North Star miniatures Nickstarter scheme. If you are interested I'm afraid you'd better be quick - only a couple of days left.

http://nstarmagazine.com/FROSTGRAVE.htm

Frustrate is a skirmish level fantasy game set in a ruined frozen city. As such I doubt there will be many intros (written or verbally) that don't mention GWs Mordheim. The warbands centre around the leader, who is a wizard, taken from one of 10 different schools of magic. I think this is what has drawn me to the game, as well as the lovely minis that have been produced for it.

I have pitched in at the "level 3" wizard level - the rule book, box set of 20 soldiers and the Chronomancer pairing. I also took the option for the Summoned pair as they look as they'll be useful elsewhere as well!

Shipping is estimated in the first week of July, so shouldn't have to wait too long.

Here is a review I found. Glad to see it was good.

http://thegaragegamers.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/frostgrave-fantasy-wargames-in-frozen_25.html

Graffam Sci-Fi #5

As a quick little kit I built Dave Graffam's first Sci-Fi Bunker SF-01. Truth be told I'd never fancied this model, but after building the previous models (which had all turned out much better than I expected from the website) and one of Dave's frequent sales I decided to pick it up.

IHMN #1: Rendezvous at the Piazza

And so the "In Her Majesty's Name" Campaign begins in earnest.

The first action was to take place at an open piazza.

A message courier was waiting patiently for her contact.

Cathedral Grounds - Progress Post

Part of the reason for my silence over the last couple of weeks has been trying to make headway in my Cathedral grounds terrain project, which has been on one of those common hiatus status' for years but is flagged for a venue in the "In Her Majesty's Name" campaign.

Dreaded Scorpions of Indeterminate Scale

 Probably the least exciting paint job to be paraded on the humble blog (especially after a fortnight of posting silence!): some scorpions. I have no idea what manufacturer these were made by, all I know is that they have been in the "animals and monsters" box of my lead pile for ages.

"Aargh - Scorpions!"

Funnily enough though, for all their base coat & dry brush gloss finish, they can be used by all my scales. Either as large-ish scorpions for my 28mm, or giant ones for the 10mm and 15mm troops. This will have them as side complications\hazards for 28mm, to serious monsters for the 10mm dungeon. A quick bonus!

The best laid plans...

No battle report this week. The regular session with MacSver was spent planning what we were going to do in our inaugural "In Her Majesty's Name" campaign.

With the themed warbands so prevalent MacSver was very keen to do a narrative campaign instead of the random(-ish) type we have used for our past Songs of Blades campaigns. I had to agree and some a simple story was devised. I had to be simple as this was our first campaign of this type and we are only playing around 6 games in it to see how the mechanics play out. All will be revealed as the campaign page goes up.

and so it begins...

All the scenarios and landscapes have been planned out as well. The imaginations were running wild as various venues round the globe are mentioned in the books. In the end the order was dictated by what scenery we had ready now, what we had nearly ready, and what we had some work to get up and running. This has inevitably pushed a couple of anticipated projects back as I focus on some terrain settings. First venue needing attention is a Cathedral. This gives me the push I needed to attack the Harry Potter Hall I've had in a crate (as seen in our first IHMN game) and also do a proper graveyard, which I've wanted for ages. The joy of this set up is that it can span so many different games that it should see a good deal of use.

Updates as they happen...

Airfix Hawker Hurricane Mk.1 Complete

I remembered the wing lights this time!

IHMN - Monster Hunting AAR

A man made monster is prowling the foggy wilderness, attacking unsuspecting victims. A reward has been put on his head and the parties are out to collect.

Game Hosting @ Carronade

Ready for the players,

The Skirmish boards were set up on Saturday for players at Carronade. It felt a bit strange wandering through the door with everyone setting up. Soon after the public doors opened MacSver appeared to lend a very able helping hand which lasted all day and for which I am incredibly grateful.

Skirmish Board: Fantasy Village - Construction

In hopeful anticipation of some folk picking up a skirmish board set or two I thought I'd best put up a "how to..." guide for the pack.

15mm Skirmish Board - Caravan Carnage

For the May holiday we took a trip up to the lovely East Neuk of Fife for a quick break in our caravan.. The weather wasn't quite as lovely all the time, but fortunately I'd looked at the forecast and taken up the Skirmish Board and accompanying kit, all compactly stored in a Pizza box. Almost as a demonstration of concept, when the rain started I cleared the small caravan dining table, set up and had a game with Arabiansquire. Almost in keeping with the pseudo impromptu nature of the game I'd forgotten my camera, so had to borrow the wee lad's ipod for photographic duties. That is the first of my poor photo excuses. If you need more, please apply in writing - I have loads!

The board was set up as above. Barbarians (Leader, Warriors and a couple of ranged slingers) in one corner and the Undead (2 Cavalry, inc the Leader, Warriors and Walking Dead) in the opposite. It was set to be a simple straight battle.

Weeblokes @ Carronade 2015

15mm Dwarf Warband

Time for a Break

After painting two 15mm warbands (Dwarves posted up soon) I've been feeling the painting strain of squinting away at the detail and realised that I need a complete change of pace and subject to keep me from the dreaded Painting Mojo loss.

So I've pulled out one of the Airfix Starter kits I'd picked up on the cheap around New Year to construct. The kit in question is a mk1 Hawker Hurricane. Being a starter set it includes a basic paint set for the kit, so no faffing around experimenting with pigments this time round!