Warmachine - Cryx Cankerworm

Finished. I was looking forward to painting this 'jack, but for some reason didn't enjoy it as much as I'd anticipated. I don't know way. Maybe I was having a bit of difficulty figuring out where to vary the colour. For the first time I used Miniatures Paints metallic Copper (on the Cankerwork underside) which came out quite nicely. It's such a rich colour I rarely use it, like the majority of my metallic paints outside of the  silver/brass/gold colours. My warjack rust theme is applied as usual, although it also had been better in the past. The jury is still out on the base as well. We'll see if any static grass makes an appearance in the future. And jus noticed that I should fix the base's skull - rubbish.

And before anyone comments, I realise the mandibles are on the wrong way round from the official pictures. But I'm not removing them so there's no point nagging me about it!

Ach, I'm sure once it's been in the cupboard and brought out on the table I'll be feeling a bit more positive about the whole beast.

I now await the Von "must have" jibe!

Slow Progress

A second squad of Marines are finally able to take their place in the "finished" cabinet. I don't know what it is, but I've hit one of those periods of not picking up the paint brush. I've have these waiting for decals and varnish and a Cryx Cankerworm (hopefully soon to come) looking for brief finishing touches for the best part of 2 weeks now. With a bit of luck the Marines gone will facilitate some impetus to finish off the other.

The frustrating part is that both pieces come are for forces that I can see the end of finishing. Eight marines, 6 Terminators and a Rhino (3-ish painting batches at a push) will see me finish my Space Marines force, and I'm only a handful of solo's/jacks away from getting my Cryx army to where I decided to stop.

At times like these sometimes the best advice is to step away for a bit. Alternatively, following the thought that "a change is as good as a rest" painting something fun that has no force building implications attached to it may be a good idea. Time for a pleasant rake through the Old School mini's box I believe!

Exploring The Narrative Campaign

A while ago now I was exploring the idea of having more narrative focus on my campaign. I used a D&D story and acted out the encounters with a Skirmish Ruleset, Songs Of Blades and Heroes. Now this year has been quite frustrating in terms of my "regular" RPG group meeting up. Click on the RPG tag and see how few session reports there have been. One silver lining may be that I've had alot of fun with a few games Star Wars Pod racing, but I missed the regular RPG sessions.

We had managed to start a D&D 4e campaign, which a many readers will know/complain about is very focused on the miniature battle side of things for an RPG. I thought I'd try and take it from the other side, and play a skirmish level wargame that had a bit more character definition and the chance of a story campaign. Being a Two Hour Wargames fan I bought "Warrior Heroes: Armies and Adventures" (hereon WHAA) , as this offered up the promise of such an experience. Other attractions were the prospect of everyone playing on the same side; a random (but linked) encounter generation system; and an system defined opposition that was based on the player force strength. This last feature is hopefully a winner, as it will still allow us to play if someone (or even everyone except me) call off.

So three of us gathered on Tuesday Evening (predictably there had been one reluctant call off due to work, MacSver) to roll up some forces and our first encounter. WHAA includes the defined world of Talomir - with different nations, races, and army lists. It also allows each Player Character (or "Star" in rule-speak) to have an accompanying force, should they wish. I'm sure as player numbers fluxuate we can include these extra grunts or not as we see fit. After reading the country descriptions, etc and what seemed like an age rolling on force generation tables we ended up with the following character forces (some extra fan made attribute rules were used):

Arabianknight:
Melee Adventurer/Warrior from Ekra (Setting Sun alignment)
Rep 4, Hardiness 1, Weapon: Long Sword, Armour: (4) Chain w/some Plate
Social Standing: 0
Combat Value: 2
Attributes: Slow, 1HW Master
Recruits: 0 (due to a social standing of 0)

Azhdeen:
Skirmisher (Missile) Adventurer/Healer from Mirish (Rising Moon alignment)
Rep 4, Hardiness 1, Weapon: Long Bow, Armour: (2) Partial Leather
Social Standing: 1
Combat Value: 2
Attributes: Dimwitted, Loot
Recruits: Skirmisher, Clibnari (x2), Hykar Cavalry

MysteriousPaul:
Archer (Missile) Adventurer from Capalan (Twilight alignment)
Rep 4, Hardiness 1, Weapon: Long Bow, Armour: (2) Partial Leather
Social Standing: 1
Combat Value: 2
Attributes: Agile, Coward
Recruits: City Spearman, Archer, Knight (x2)

As we were all from different countries of origin a central country was picked with a vague background story. After another age rolling on tables to generate a opposing force we were away to try and get at least a small amount of gaming in. In the future I'll have to try and prep the games by rolling up the opposition before everyone arrives, as it not only takes time to generate the force, but you have to look out appropriate figures etc which is bit of a waste of our precious time when assembled.
 
We managed a few turns of the battle, but all the table rolling had taken it's toll on the clock and we had to wrap up. I'll not document the battle until after next time as I attempt to chronicle the story as it unfolds. We'll see out a few campaign turns and see how we are enojying the whole experience I'm sure.

Last Race of the Season

Saturday was the last meeting of the Livingston Battleground gaming club until after the Summer holidays (which scarily start in 2 weeks in Scotland) so I took along the Pod Racing Kit to hopefully try out on some new and younger racers.

A mass spinout card causes ArabianSquire (in orange) to
miss the first gate, whilst MacSver (back left) finds himself
facing the wrong way down the track.

We managed a race with 5 players, Myself, ArabianSquire, MacSver, his son MiniMacSver and for want of a more mysterious name, Callum. Only MacSver and myself had played before, so it was an interesting test if I ever considered taking the game to a convention.

It didn't take long at all for the new racers to get the hang of speed and laying down the cards. With two fathers & sons playing there was a lot of gleeful inter-family backstabbing, as you'd expect.

MiniMacSver plays the price for over boosting his engines
as the rest of the field zoom past his stalled racer.

We ended up only running 2 laps, which took around 2 hours to play. This didn't include any downtime or players taking a long time to decide moves. The main "delay" (if you could all it that) is with the playing on cards on each other - by the end of the first lap we'd gone through an entire pack of cards!

In the end, after the lead changing several times, ArabianSquire won on the last bend - speeding past the burning wreckage of his fathers pod which he'd blown up with a saboteurs bomb the previous turn! Only one other pod (MacSver's) remained on the track to take the Checkered Flag - a similar non-finisher ratio to previous games we'd played.