And the month's winner is . . .

Terrain

After looking through the images of Infinity terrain on google, terrain is the project for the month. Rock outcroppings and pillars, a raised walkway/roadway, and multilevel hab buildings. It's probably a bit ambitious for a month's work, but if the bug bites I may get through a fair bit.

Another extended silence broken

I'm still as hopeless as ever. Ten months of silence isn't good.

Anyway, in the time since my last post I have put in a great deal of time DMing 2nd edition AD&D. It started off with a pair of wild boars (juveniles) almost taking the party out on their way to their first mission. The same mission also created the famous shit-on-a-stick first aid approach to stabilizing fallen party members. Along the way one of the party members got taken out by another when affected by bloodrage. It finished with the group's mage (and budding arsonist) gaining access to what he needed to become one of the most powerful mages on my world.

I'm grateful to the guys of the group as they helped me explore the world I've been creating for the last four years.

Since the campaign wound up at the end of January, Owen has taken the reins of the group, and we are know in the Iron Kingdoms. This meant miniatures, and when Owen put an order away to Privateer Press, I asked for the Bastian Kinnet model. During march I worked on this mini, and made a start on a possible backup character for Owen's campaign. I believe I did a pretty good job of painting the mini (unfortunately I have not been able to take a decent photo of it yet, pics will follow when I do get some good shots), and didn't want to go with simple base. Searching the rulebook, I found the symbol of Morrow (my character is Knight, and priest of Morrow), and fashioned a flagstone base from plasticard. I etched the symbol into the flagstone, then painted it in grey, with a black wash in the carved area to bring out the symbol.

To try and get some motivation for painting I have decided the work on different armies each month. March was IK Minis. April is .... not sure yet.

Meantime, I'm looking at getting two more armies started:- A Dystopian Wars fleet, maybe Prussian; and an Infinity force, that is seriously looking like PanOceania military orders (Knights, backed by order sergeants and fusiliers).

Almost a year of silence

I've been silent for almost a year on this blog, and even though I haven't done lot in that time I have managed a few things.

With my interest in the Ambush Alley family of games I have mostly been working on projects for this. As I already have a set of buildings and a board for desert action I decided to make a modular board for urban warfare. So far it stands at 9 30 x30 cm sections, all double sided.

To go with this, I've started making some buildings.

After a trip to Christchurch in April I have also added modern British infantry, and Modern Russian paratroops.

More recent is a foray back into role-playing, as we put a new group together. I agreed to DM this group for a start, and as a result have returned to the design of an RPG world that has been brewing in my mind for years. Trying to find a time period for this, I started thinking about how things could have come about for my world (A fantasy version of the Roman Empire rules most of the world). retreating almost a thousand years from that time I was able to co-opt an idea from the series I was reading. So many thanks got to Anne McCaffrey for creating Pern, and both Anne and Todd for the plagues that ravaged Pern. Therefore, a Plague had ravaged my world, changing borders, reducing the size of nations, and allowing an obscure nation to profit from the disaster, and expand to become a mighty empire. The setting for the campaign is a recovering kingdom, that is finally able to reclaim lost areas, and the PC's are right in the middle of it.

More will follow on  the D&D campaign, and some of the events that occur, along with some notes on my world design process.

Second Fire team ready for action

Finished painting the second of three fire teams tonight. They didn't take as long as the first as I just followed my notes from last time.

From my reading list i have discovered the name of the condition that I (and many other gamers) suffer from.It is Gamer Distraction Syndrome. More information on it can be found here. To fight this I am going to take a leaf out of  The Man Cave and have a focus for each month, which obviously makes this month Ambush Alley (and its variations).

Further the Ambush Alley group of games, my Bag O Zombie Babes arrived today. I'm not sure if it's a day late or 19 days early, as Amazon kept sending me delay notification emails for a bout 4 days, with the last saying arrival on the 8th (today is the 9th), and the email telling me it had shipped saying the arrival date was expected to be the 28th.

The Zombie babes are a nice looking miniature. Unfortunately, they only come in a single pose, but as there are 100 of them in the bag, I expect I will be doing a spot of conversion work.

Fire team 1 painted

Over  the last two nights I've been painting the first of my fire teams for Ambush Alley. I've only been able to put in an hour a night, so it works out that it takes about two hours to paint a fire team. They are only painted with basic colours, no highlighting or shading. I may dip them later, when all the figures I'm painting are at this standard. 

I'm still not sure what I am going to do with the bases of these figures, as I want to leave the counter (or at least some of it) showing to separate the teams/types. If anybody is reading this I would welcome suggestions for the bases.

I've also sorted through my Airfix WWII ground crew sets to find figures suitable for civilians so I can make some civilian mobs as well. To go with that, My first Bag O Zombies (Babes) should arrive by the end of the week.

Back to AA terrain tomorrow night.

Ambush Alley miniatures

Spent part of tonight basing the figures I'm using for Ambush Alley. They are (from left to right and from the back) Insurgents with small arms, Insurgent leaders, Insurgent RPGs, Insurgent Machine guns. All insurgents are played by Esci Vietcong. Next are Marines/Us Army. 3 x fire teams, and squad leaders. Represented by Modern US infantry. In front of them are a sniper team and two missile teams.Some random figures to represent civilian contractors, and similar. Panzer grenadiers are up next, 3 gruppes, and a sniper and missile team (all there just for Nigel).Finally, playing the role of various organizations are US special forces from Vietnam.

Last week I added Ambush Z to my AA collection, and realised that I needed Zombies in 1:72 scale to go with it. As there are very few available in this scale I ordered a Bag  Zombies babes from Amazon (as Nigel has Zombies and Zombie dogs from the Zombies board game already). Later I will add a Bag O Zombies, and  a Bag O Zombies Dogs and maybe a Bag O Skeletons as well

AA building updates

I've begun to texture the buildings, by first adding pieces of the card shown in a previous post, then coating the walls in plaster. Once the plaster dried the first building was given a coat of Vallejo Iraqi Sand. I followed that with a heavy dry brush of white poster paint, so that some of the Iraqi sand shows through in the recesses.

The two pictures below show this. One is taken with the flash on, and the other under normal lighting. I'm not sure which is better as the flash shows the white as very bright.

I put the fire team in front to show the building size. The figures are modern US soldiers in 1:72 scale.

I've still got to plaster the roof, which I think I will require mixing the plaster rather than using a premixed tub. Also on the list of things to do on the building is painting the roof trapdoor, and adding texture to, and painting the base.

New boards

Following on from my last post, and my desire to return to Ambush Alley on a 3 x 3 board, I dug out a 3mm MDF sheet (Of which I have a large number) with the intention of painting it on both sides. The Idea behind this was to have a reversible board which could be used for both Ambush Alley, and Firestorm Armada.

Both sides were base-coated, one with black, the other with brown.

On the black side I followed it with a splatter effect of white (shake the brush at the board). This produced some streaks in places, rather than the straight spotting I wanted, so I had to go over the streaks with black to eliminate them. I was happy with the final result, as seen below

The other side I attacked with a sandy colour obtained from Resene ($2.00 Obsolete test pot), using the brush with a rough approach so that the paint was smeared, leaving traces of the basecoat showing. I hope this makes it look like windblown sand, and not just  mess, but it should look better with terrain on it.

Hajjis 2, Marines nil

Played another 2 games of Ambush Alley last night. Neither of us could figure out what went wrong as the marines fell to the insurgents in both games

The First game was over in less than half an hour, as one of my marines fire teams got shredded after cleaning out a hotspot, and the second team started taking casualties shortly after. Of course it was Nigel having incredible luck with the insurgent dice rolls.

Reset, and after slow start I was getting good rolls with the insurgents, but not great. Fortunately, Nigel started rolling badly with the marines on defense, with one team getting cut down one move short of the contractors. RPG fire on the overwatch team began to take it's toll, and Nigel also conceded.

One of the problems with the game may have been the size of the board we were using, as it was a 4 x 4, rather than a 3 x 3. The terrain being more open than it would have on a smaller board seemed to favour the insurgents. Next time round we'll go back to the 3 x 3, as I will take a board of my own, instead of using a club board.

Focus, Focus,Focus

I've decided that for the rest of this year I'm going to narrow my focus on wargaming, and concentrate on only a few things.

Right now, my thoughts seem to be aimed at the Ambush Alley games (AA, Force on Force, Tomorrows war, and eventually Ambush Z), and building up my collection of terrain for it.

As you can see, the buildings are currently at the bare foamcore stage. I plan to add some damage to them with some card I picked up a long time back, with brickwork and stonework on it. That will be followed by a coating of plaster to allow me to work cracks and possibly some weapons damage.

More pics and updates later as i continue to work on these buildings

Another wooden spoon

Due to a lack of venue Adam (Christchurch's pressganger) moved Monstercon 3 to Timaru.

Over 4 rounds I watched my score fall further and further behind.

First round, I got a lesson in how tough a gator force is (Hordes Minions).

Second round against Scott, I  had him in position for an assassination victory, but couldn't prevent a scenario win by him.In my turn he would had Magnus catching a Reckoner with full focus to the face, through Testament's feat. I think I will play some more games using Testament in the future.

The Third round was sacrifice, and although I was facing Richard, I felt I was facing Nigel (Gunline does NOT equal funline, unless you play Cygnar). a mistake left Kreoss in the open with a hunter lining him up for the kill.

Fourth round had me facing another Cygnar army, and another death for Kreoss.

I was the only one to walk away from the day with no wins, so I guess that's another wooden spoon for the collection. And my thoughts about the future of my Menoth force? Knights Errant and Idrian Skirmishers for some shooting, and play a few more games with Testament. But more importantly, play Firestorm Armada, I had more fun playing a half game of that than a full tournament of Warmachine/Hordes. (must save money for a fleet)

A quick update

Once again it's been a while since I posted.

Of course things have been a bit busy, with finding a new house, and moving. Most of my wargaming stuff is currently in storage in the garage/basement, so I have very little to work on, and next to no desire to paint at present.

During this hiatus I have added to my collection. My PoM force has just received the addition of the High Reclaimer, and his epic identity as Testament of Menoth.

I have also added two more games from Ambush Alley Games, in the form of Force on Force (AA with regulars vs regulars), and the pre-release PDF of  Tomorrows War - the scifi expansion for force on force. I recently printed them out, and with a little help from my boss, bound them.

Just before Xmas I took the plunge and ordered Firestorm Armada from maelstrom in the UK. After reading the book and seeing the photos within of the fleets available, it seems my main buying project for this year will be my Terran Alliance fleet. I'm that impressed with the models that I've done something I don't normally do. I've offered to paint  Nigel's Dindrenzi fleet when he gets it.

I'm hoping to start posting a bit more regularly once I get the garage/basement sorted, as i hope to set a table up in the basement and be able to play games there without having to constantly move things on off the dining table in the house.

Matchbox models, providing ruins for Ambush Alley

I've been making buildings for Ambush Alley, and so far they have been intact buildings, as I have not been looking forward to making ruined ones also.

A couple of weeks ago I picked up a Revell Sherman Firefly  kit off trademe, in 1:76 scale. Of course there were very few companies that make models in 1:76, and for the most part, Revell make 1:72 kits. This got me thinking, and when the model arrived, the first thing I did was check the sprues. It turns out, Revell have all the old matchbox moulds, as matchbox always included a terrain piece for display.

From there, I remembered I had acquired a boxful of matchbox kits that were already assembled. Digging them out, I found the terrain pieces were there with them, and I now have a good set of ruins to use with Ambush Alley.

I'm a hopeless blogger

It's been quite some time since I updated this blog.

To be honest, I haven't done a lot with my miniatures in that time, just some sporadic painting, and working on terrain. I'm finding it hard to get motivated to work on anything at the moment.

Since the last update I have participated in the Kiwithralls Nation at War league, finishing around the middle of the field. Although the idea was to start a new army, I continued with my Menoth force, using the league as a means to learn more about my units,and caster. I started the league strong, with a win for my first game, using Kreoss to take out Resnick, and learned the value of Exemplar Seneschals. My seneschal assaulted Troys heavy jack, smiting it directly onto Resnick. It was then loss/win/loss and so on to  the end of the league. Another highlight of the league for me was taking out John's Special K at the Longest Night tournament - multiple hits from jacks leaving him on one box, and me casting around the table, looking for something to deliver the final blow (Sunburst for the win).

I've also looked at Ambush Alley, and played a couple of games of this. I find it to be an enjoyable game. Playing the quickstart scenario both ways left me with two losses. As the insurgent, I got slaughtered, as expected. Turn around and Nigel hammered me when I took the marines, despite my tactics scaring him at the start. Damn his luck with my dice.

The most recent game I've played was back to warmachine - 25 points vs Nigel. The usual debate over his list started the game."My list changes, I'm always changing it." Maybe the caster changes, but almost every time I've faced him it's been two hunters and a defender. Anyway, he took eHaley, two hunters, defender, squire, gunmage captain. to oppose him, I took pKreoss, two devouts, revenger, knights exemplar, exemplar seneschal, and wracks.(yes, all light jacks) Nigels dice were against him, and I capitalised on this. I also played badly, by not moving as fast as i could with the knights. In the end, Kreoss held out through Haleys feat and set fire to her twice before she fell, and once the game was over, I realised that I forgot my feat. oh well, I 'll remember it when I play Owen next week.

Doc Ock is alive and well - and living in the under hive

I've been adding to my necromunda collection lately, including more eschers, and a delaque gang.

The eschers are all bare metal, and will be painted when I feel the inspiration, but that will have to wait as I plan to get a set of bases from Iron Halo and refit all my Eschers to that set.

The Delaques were a sight to behold. For a gang that is supposed to be sneaky, and hide in the shadows, they stood out a bit. They looked more like hippies with tie-dyed overcoats, and guns. Soon to be stripped, and repainted when the urge takes me.

I've also acquired a couple of  hired guns for my collection, in the form of two scummers, and a second beastmaster Wyrd.

On to the subject of the title. With the small necromunda kick happening I finally got around to building my Spyrer patriarch. It changed a bit from my initial plan as I looked over what I had ready, and made a few observations. A pair of  catachan lasguns had their stocks removed before being added to pipes, and the powerclaws were made from offcuts from a space marine backpack, and the talons from a set of lightning claws

As you can see, the figure came out looking a bit like Doctor Octopus, hence the title. It still requires some work with greenstuff to fill in some gaps and sculpt on a few extra details

Worldworks

I've added the link for Worldworks to Come Play in my worlds.

They are a web based company that specialize in cardboard terrain. And their terrain works, It's sturdy, and can stand up to some fairly heavy miniatures. With all their products as download PDF files, you can print as much or as little as you want to assemble your terrain.

I've recently bought Thoumont's TLX edition (thousands of buildings) and Terrainlinx Himmelveil Streets as part of my modular city plans.

Check them out.

From ship to shore

My plans to build Osgiliath have altered slightly. Osgiliath will now be incorporated into a more ambitious project - a modular city. A city that includes intact and ruined Osgiliath, an imperial sector, and a harbour/dock section. My intention is to use this project as a battlefield source for a variety of games. Warmachine/Hordes, Warhammer, 40K, Necromunda, and Lord of the Rings/War of the Ring.

I've looked at starting this project several times since I got some tiles cut for it (63 so far), but had no clear idea of where to start. After providing a friend with the materials to build the Worldworks kit Maiden of the High Seas, and having visions of Necromunda Gangers running riot below decks I had the starting point. Sea tiles, and the dock for the maiden. Of course this also works well for Warmachine, with either Cryx or pirates raiding a port.

All tiles are 1 foot square for this undertaking, and I began with 8 of them. 4 were painted with a blue poster paint that I've used for water before, as it tends to run to slightly different shades of blue depending on the thickness brushed on. I deepened the blue by adding a wash of Tamiya Smoke (X19).

The other 4, I didn't give a full coat, but left 1 edge unpainted. These tiles will form the dock frontage. To build up the dock I trimmed popsicle sticks for planks and glued them in place. I still need to add an edge to the dock, which will probably be made from balsa, and sit slightly higher than the planks. And of course I still have to come up with something for bollards

For those who are interested, I'll add a link for Worldworks in the side bar.

First post in a while

Since my last post I have acquired my new Blood Agels codex, along with the new miniatures.

But I have also been occupied with another project that came to fruition on april 13,the arrival of my son Lachlan. Of course this has meant that I haven't been able to put much time into gaming, so I have only had one battle in the Kiwithralls Nation @ War league.

During this time my Menoth collection has expanded with the addition of eKreoss, Covenant of Menoth, a second sunburst, Zealots with a monolith bearer, a choir, and Resnik. The last three thanks to Troy, fro a deal with a friend of his in Christchurch.

My N@W list for april consisted of pKreoss, Crusader, Revenger, Devout, and a Seneschal.I'm not sure of my expansion for may, but I am thinking of adding the choir (probably half) along with the covenant, and a sunburst. Other options include knights examplar, a Paladin, or even bastions (if they are still at comics and i decide to get them)

Short update

I've gone back to painting my Blood Angels lately, after playing Ash in a game of Blood Angels vs Blood Angels.(It ended in a draw)

I'm currently working on one of my devastator squads. It already had 3 elements finished - The sergeant and two missile launchers. The remaining elements are coming along nicely at present, and will look better than the rest when they are finished. This is because i have changed my approach to painting and now work on what I am inspired tp paint rather then forcing myself to work on the next thing on my list

The downside to this is that with my new approach, everything will look better than previous work. Long term, this means that I am going to have to rework almost my entire blood angels army. Squad by Squad into the simple green for stripping, and then repaint the units. I am going to have to put a small investment into my painting gear soon, and buy an airbrush and compressor

On another note, I have the new Tyranids codex, and my first thought was seroiusly disapointed in it. Where are my flesh hooks? In fact, where are half my mutations? Why do I now have too many Hormagaunts and Termagants (Max brood size has shrunk). The new codex means a major reoganization for existing tyranid players, with the only gain being the new units.

Web MMORPG Golemizer

Web MMORPG Golemizer