Armed and Dangerous

Just a quick one. Amongst various bits of physical exercise and Heinken Cup action I DID get a bit of brush-work in and got our final Dark Heresy player, Ryan's Assassin in training, who I'm renaming Reno for the sake of this post.

Fig is a Heresy offering, another nice simple, solid figure that they seem to specialise in. Scheme was aiming for Malcolm Reynold a la Firefly. Slightly fuzzy pics for some reason, must be dodgy CCTV, but I think he's there. 2 PPs in the bag. Hopefully we get to the chance to get him on the table this week :)

Second set after a bit of camera button bashing. Bit better one feels, still learning the whole taking better photos thing!

Geek me up Spotty!

No Dark Heresy last night due to vague plague amongst a couple of us. Rather missing my roleplay hit so have this instead, shamelessly ripped off from Rather Gamey.

Very, VERY glad it's Friday :)

This weekend I shall be sorting through mountain and hopefully getting in a bit of brush-time

I Am A: Neutral Good Human Fighter (5th Level)

Ability Scores:
Strength-17
Dexterity-17
Constitution-16
Intelligence-14
Wisdom-13
Charisma-15

Alignment:
Neutral Good A neutral good character does the best that a good person can do. He is devoted to helping others. He works with kings and magistrates but does not feel beholden to them. Neutral good is the best alignment you can be because it means doing what is good without bias for or against order. However, neutral good can be a dangerous alignment when it advances mediocrity by limiting the actions of the truly capable

Race:
Humans are the most adaptable of the common races. Short generations and a penchant for migration and conquest have made them physically diverse as well. Humans are often unorthodox in their dress, sporting unusual hairstyles, fanciful clothes, tattoos, and the like.

Class:
Fighters can be many things, from soldiers to criminal enforcers. Some see adventure as a way to get rich, while others use their skills to protect the innocent. Fighters have the best all-around fighting capabilities of the PC classes, and they are trained to use all standard weapons and armor. A fighter's rigorous martial training grants him many bonus feats as he progresses, and high-level fighters have access to special melee maneuvers and exotic weapons not available to any other character.

Find out What Kind of Dungeons and Dragons Character Would You Be?, courtesy of Easydamus

Confessions of a Dreadball Coach IV

With a smattering of Season 2 goodies in sticky mitts a few of us got our proxy on to give the new teams a run out and hone so moves for the upcoming Mantic day.

Personally I'd plumped for the Robots and Z'Zors, based solely on looks as is often my case, which haven't quite turned up yet so first game was proxy-mungus.

Apologies for the poor disco lighting :)

Exterminate??

First up I lined up against Rich's Gungan-Judwan borrowing his Dalek-Robots. Spending our tourney 30MC bonus we both took a card and four skills from the Season 2 table to try them out. Can't remember what I got but Rich picked up several Skill increases. So my first game with the Bots and Rich with his upgraded Jud that he helped playtest = five rush landslide not helped but some awful dice on my part. Even Rich was slightly embarrassed and we agreed though this may have been a bit of a freak it may end up as a tactic in tourneys.

Moving on I tried again with my Orx putting all four skills on Jacks looking for Slide. Got two one of which was a "you choose" where I ignored the Skill increase.

Shall we dance?

Bit more of a game and slide definitely helped our the little lads with Speed 3+ giving a good likelihood of a couple of dashes before doing something. Definitely a go to skill for the greenskins. We almost pushed the rush marker into double figures before the landslide. Thinking that a skills / dice combo 30MC might be the way forward.

Judwan Lock-Out.

I have to admit that with both games I was concentrating on what I was doing rather than disrupting the Jud game. With only 6 players think it might be valid to lay an early beat down to get a couple off the pitch. Another day for that one. Will have to have a think about how to minimise the power of Feint.

Can't beat em, join em. Punch a bug day!

Finishing off the night the Tohn-Ghaa Titans moved onto Chris' proxied Z'Zor who I was keen to see in action. Taking basic teams it turned into a fistfight as we targeted each others Jacks. A rush of exploding Slam dice saw me get the upper hand despite Cant Feel A Thing being well felt (sorry!). Supporting threat hexes are necessary to create the required Slam differential. Despite giving his Guard a good going over I couldn't scratch the thing and eventually left it alone. Chris suffered from dice and first time out of the hive for me to score an opportunistic but convincing 5 point win.

Elsewhere Shado ran Sirens with an extra Guard as "Corp with Run Interference" to school the Z'Zor again.

Seems I've gone for the more eclectic combined arms teams of Season 2 but not a problem there, just need to play a few more games to work them out.

Sort of seeing Z'Zor as Orx with Strikers but will have to see how that one goes.

Best play a few more games then :)

Obligatory post Salute post prt II - All in the Cards

Hello people, as threatened all the links to the little-ish stack of business cards and flyers that I picked up. Basically stuff that made me tingle a little and drew me to the conclusion that times they are a changing!

Personal favourite; Dark World's 2000AD awsome Dredd and Rogue Trooper. First in line when the32mm versions drop out of the moulds.

Feel free to explore :)

Warploque Miniatures
Miniature Factory
White Dragon Miniatures
Anvil Industry
Agora Miniatures
Sarissa Precision
Zinge Industries
Warmill
Dark World Creations

Obligatory post Salute post

WWII table candy

Picture heavy of course. Good day out as always, loads of great looking games / tables and plenty of punters. I had a good wander before taking a detailed look at anything.

I wasn't really looking for anything in particular, other than my usual dose of inspiration. Bumped into some old gaming buddies which is always a major bonus.

As always, the quality on offer seems to have increased yet again. I didn't make it last year but it felt like there is a continuing changing of the guard. Amongst all of the more "traditional" offerings a plethora of high end skirmish games seem to have taken root, lots of accessories, plenty of resin and laser cut mdf.

I picked up a pocketful of cards and flyers which I'll inflict on you later :)

In terms of my mild gaming crisis I didn't so much work out what I do want to paint and play as much as what I don't. Nothing old, something new, but what.......

Picked up a KR case plus some undercoat and varnish sprays I was very drawn by the Infinity figures, they're gorgeous. There was one trader with a deal for two starter sets and a free rulebook though I downloaded that in the week..... Other options were a box of Perry AWI British or some Victrix Nap flank company just 'cos.

Rolling over to Mantic we caught up with each other and Stew who sorted us out our pick-up of Season 2 plesin goodness. For me that was the rulebook and the cheerleaders (Robots and Z'Zor still to come) along with a bonus Judwan MVP. I also picked up a Reek Rolat as it would just been wrong for me to got to Salute and NOT buy at least one figure.

At which point I realised that I'm happy enough getting on with what I've got. Get Dreadball painted up and play a few more games and get on to SAGA.........happy days :)

Big Ol' table of Tanks

Perspex movement trays......interesting!

Nice breach!

ACW skirmish......

.....on a prticuarly stunning table.

Otherworld, good to see them getting on old school stylee

BIG purple worm :)

15mm Taliban

Sure you can work this one out

Soviet Bolt Action

Hammer Slammers

Flying boats.......Spelljammer?

Sexy French resin wierdness.......

.......with a rampant killer bear.....obviously!

Space Munchies?

Spaceballs :)

A Crowd of Funders

It still seems amazing how the Kickstarter craze seems to have gained such epic proportions within our niche hobby in such a short space of time. Dreadball Season 1 seemed to crash into my consciousness but then I might have spent the back end of last year under something of a hobby rock.

 It seems to find a couple of tempting projects hawked my way each week with the lure of bonus stretch goals apparently equally loads of free stuff. My recent experience with Zombicide II taught me a lot about temptation that I already knew in different ways but I'm not looking to revisit or rehash today :)

Simply put a couple of us at the club have been keeping track of Heroes of Normandie and even had a run out of the precursor game, Frontiers.

Right now the £90 deal gets you a feck load of stuff including Cthulu Nazi Zombies.......mmmmm. The point is that there's enough stuff to play several games simultaneously, especially investing an extra £8 in an extra set of basic tiles. Enough for a campaign, a campaign with multiple players, like you might find at a wargames club.....

So...a bit of a chat and a forum post later we've now got four of us signed up at an individual cost of £25 i.e. not a lot of wonga for a club campaign.

Hardly a new idea, our guys did the same for DB1 but as KS seems to be kicking out a lot of board and skirmish games this seems like an awful lot of common in the face of the individual impulse weakness that has spawned so many virtual column inches about the dark side of Geek KS.

If we get enough sign ups we may go for a double set or some of the add ins. "United we Stand, Divided we Fall" as sang Freddie.

We shall see :)

My name is.....

.....and I AM a Wargamer :)

I had, as I occasionally do, pre meditated this post and it was going to be about how I don't feel like I'm a valid wargamer, as a continuation of my previous meanderings as to what constitutes a wargame.

I've been meaning to do a stock take but I'm 99% sure I no longer own an "Army" above 10mm. Very few 28mm figures, if any, on a non round base, definitely no movement trays or anything to actually rank upon them. I seem to a writer of rosters rather than list. I digress as hopefully I've made, part of, my point.

Despite my previous rambling a this was beginning to bother me and I was beginning to look to Salute for salvation ........BUT then Super Tom returned to the club last night and brought his ACE with him :)

A full 6x4 of his own scenery full of fully painted, multi-plated 24 man regiments of blue and grey.......with FLAGS!!

He even brought his own set of homebrew rules with him that along with Shaun we gave a flex. We got most of a game in rolling dice, discussing mechanics, brewing teas and working through possible tweaks as we went.

It was like old, old days and incredibly enjoyable it was to. An itch well scratched and no detriment or slight felt to any other set of rules or little men that I currently take pleasure from :p

The major reason for rocking up at Salute is to bump into old hobby mates and pick up some inspiration. Just managed a head start on both.

Well pleased :)

Purple Haze (POLL)

Hello people, something new and hopefully interesting.

I simply couldn't decide on a scheme for my Forge Fathers, other than a base of purple rather than apparently standard Dwarven Blue, so I've painted up three schemes and am appealing to the blog-o-sphere for some vote power.

Further detailing can always be added but I'd like your help to get the basic scheme set. I was looking to do something a little bit different which was where the purple start point came from, The pink, to me, is overtly chaos dwarf and I could go a bit farther with markings or even rocky horror show. I hadn't seen too many metallic steel schemes about so thought I'd give it a go and the bronze was a last minute entry Skyrim Dwemer inspired.

So, here you go, poll on the right will run for a week. Grateful and keen for your input :)

PS: yes it does look like they're line dancing!

Plotting a Course II

Delayed from last week we got back to Dark Heresy last night. Mr C sorted us out with another e-update and the promise that plot holes had been filled:

Previously on Dark Heresy….

After making their way through the blockade of ships the acolytes land in Acreage. The acolytes start investigating and are pointed to an attack location next to the wall. On their way there they bump into a small group of enemy soldiers entering the city. After fighting them off, the acolytes find the scene of the attack with the blood trail leading into the city.

After tracking the trail into the warehouse district the acolytes, further investigation provides the lead of two corpse farmers Smeed and Smoot who might know something more. After finding and interrogating Smeed and Smoot, they admit to selling the bodies to three xenos who are hiding in a Skymill.

The acolytes stakeout the skymill and spot one of the xenos with his pets leaving. They follow him and watch him kill two locals and carry the bodies off. The acolytes attack and quickly kill off the pets but struggle to hurt the xenos. After finally killing the xenos and patching themselves up the acolytes decide how to kill the remaining two.

 

As previously mentioned we ambushed Bad-Dude and basically got our arses handed back to us, heavily spanked, not in a good way!

 

Dusting ourselves off we retreated to our stake-out house, healed up and planed our next move. Having chatted by e-mail we'd decided on going for the simple annihilation route and basically burning down the Skymill ASAP. We did drag back Bad-Dude and run a basic autopsy. Not human at any point, xenos worm-like biped.

It wasn't until we started looking at his robes that MrC got sketchy on detail again which piqued our interest. "It's obviously xenos"we were told, the clear implication being to leave it alone. "How" we asked deciding we'd found something useful that we weren't supposed to have. Eventually the Voice of God gave way to us spotting the bio-ware circuitry inside the lining. Imagine our delight when we found the alien pistol, especially once Charlie's Tech-Priest worked out the trigger! A quick test firing into Bad-Dude soon had it named Noisy Cricket and we had a reasonable plan.

 

Sourcing a four wheel cart loaded with wood, oil and a barrel of gunpowder from the docks we were ready to perform a medieval cart ram-raid. Robed and Cricketed Ryan crept up to the Skymill's loading dock and by luck the door was open and the beasties asleep. Setting the fuse we sat back and watched the barbie do our work for us. Bad-Dude's mates appeared about 50m up out of a window slithering their way down the mill. A couple of Spasms and some gunfire loosened their grip and the falling rules did the rest of the job for us........SPLAT!!

 

Heading back to the ship there were lots of pointed questions  from God about what we were doing with the robes and the now 3 pistols, having dug another 2 out of the mill ash, so we hid them and lied.......which was when we were gleefully awarded Corruption Points for playing with Xenos toys and checked to see if we mutated!

 

Rob's Arbite picked up super-dandruff, Charlie grew an extra toe (despite his refusal to have much to do with the whole issue in the first place), Ryan passed his Willpower check and I, the slightly unhinged paranoid psyker picked up..........Black Hearted :)

 

It would seem that we're turning Radical...... all of us!

Confessions of a Dreadball Coach III

Not so much to confess this time round I have to admit so I'll see where I manage to get us to ;)

I played Craig last night, Shaun's son, and it was his fourth game so a bit of a learner. He also had Orx and Gobs so useful for me to consolidate what I'd learnt by passing it on. On that basis and as it was his first league game I ignored my various upgrades and skill increases.

We had a good game managing a three and four pointer each for a highly entertaining draw. Striking each turn simply didn't happen and there were several big punch ups over the ball.

The interesting thing for me was that this didn't matter so much as we both playing in a similar style, mine, with identical teams. I'm sure that this shouldn't be a surprise and the point I'm eventually driving at is about specific tactics for specific teams.

Lots of chatter around the DB community about the apparent dominance of Corp teams and the point that they're easiest to use because their all round abilities mean that you don't to vary your game to your opponent.

I'm relatively sure I touched on this in part Part II and I suppose its a development of the theme. Mr C and I chatted about that very subject on the way home with myself questioning my 1 card, 1 assisted slam, move the ball model. Read an interesting post on the Mantic forums today where a guys better half runs Veermyn against his Forge Fathers and often holds onto the ball knowing that he can't strip it.

Nothing wrong with sticking to a formula when you're learning a new team / faction / army etc but variation on a theme is key.

Goblin sandwich!

Back at the game we'd been having mixed luck and I'd been waxing on about the importance of doubling when picking up the ball. We had done quite well at slam prioritisation and a steady chain of goblins flowed through both injury boxes. Not having that extra dodge dice makes a big difference,....playing to your opponent then!
We both also had some outrageous exploding dodging with both Orx and Gobs performing a few deft pirouettes! 6s always welcome!

With only Craig's final rush remaining his was four points down with ball deep in his end.

Four Pointer! :)

Run to the ball and pick it up - Double.
Free run down the pitch plus a couple of dashes.
Throw to the Gobbo on the two point strike hex.
Two successes and double the catch.
Free run and a dash to the four point strike hex.
Final action for a one dice strike.
Score the four pointer :)

Gobbos CAN get the job done and anything that gives them a chance of a double is golden but with one dice and card they NEED a bit more luck than others.

You can make you're own luck apparently, just need to work out how ;) The thought that comes to mind is identifying where each team is limited an then targeting that.

Ill let you know how I get on! Promise :)

Crawling the Walls

BOOO-YAAAH!

Finished up the Warp-Rift Wall-Crawlers. The pea-dot camo didn't come out quite as strong as I might have liked but it's there and it's enough. There was some worry that they were too dark but their ginger fairness has balanced them out. Pleased with the numbering.

Far better photos as well. Finally picked up those daylight bulbs I'd been threatening and took the advice I'd googled up. So lightbox, tripod, 2x daylight bulbed lamp, taken at night with no other lights on (light pollution) gets a far better result. I've updated the Arbite and Tech-Priest (I'm not a Nerd) photos too and left the old ones in as a comparison, BIG difference!

So another 20 PPs and the Forge Fathers to follow should see a bumper month with the brush. Still haven't settled the scheme for the stunties. Got two main schemes in mind so will paint up one of each and set up my very first poll, hopefully by the end of the week.
Something a bit different all round then :)