I'm Back!

So, I vanished for a few weeks. Sorry about that, completely unintended, just some frantic hobby time and a bit of real life got in the way of blogging. 

So, what have I been up to? Well, finishing off the secret project, as my brother visited at the end of August. I got almost everything done, probably the first time ever. The miniatures turned out great, as did the terrain that I got finished. we got two games in over the long weekend, between sightseeing, babysitting my niece and some board games. Both games went well considering to hadn't play tested them, but I will make some minor tweaks the the scenarios. We should be able to finish the campaign in another session. I'm also less convinced Brink of Battle rules are well suited to the era. They did the job, but weren't quite right - perhaps too many miniatures on the table. 

I did take pics, but won't post them yet - Samulus will also get a play through (of the whole campaign i hope!) and I don't want to spoil the narrative.  

Anyway, after that weekend I took a self-imposed week off the hobby. Nice to take some time out, I got to spend some time on the Playstation - a chance to finally rattle through Skyrim. 

So I sat down last night looking for a little something to ease me back in. I had some 15mm SciFi prepped but languishing for a few months. A few hours work and hey presto (with fluff): 

++++++++++ INCOMING TRANSMISSION ++++++++++++

                  ++++++++ DECODING ++++++++

Arbiter Assessment Report (AAR)

---------------

---------------

Sighted: Kravaak system, 2516

Race: Presumed Human

Affiliation: Unknown

Weapon systems: Unknown

Armour: Advanced Therm-Optic Camouflage (ATOC) suits of unknown origin

Assessment: Further intelligence is required for a full threat assessment. All sightings should be reported to the Confederated Systems Arbitration Authority (CSAA) Intelligence Directorate. 

---------------

These are actually Khurasan miniatures modern US Special Forces, but they are so modern I thought they looked quite SciFi. Made sense to me anyway. These are the most elite of  New Vedith's military forces, utilising Advanced Therm-Optic Camouflage suits. of course, New Vedith doesn't officially acknowledge the existence of and Special Forces Units. 

I basically painted them the same as I'd done the bases, almost a shame to dry brush such finely detailed miniatures. But I think the effect works, with the weapons and helmets in a lighter shade to define the miniatures. 

Gruntz - second playthrough

Another 15mm SciFi post before I move onto a fresh topic. I got a second game of Gruntz last week, with Samulus once again. I won't write a full AAR, after all they say a picture tells a thousand words, right? (Samuus - youre welcome to pull together a more detailed writeuo). And do please forgive the unpainted terrain, it's one of many things I'm working on!

Deployments from the New Vedith perspective. Simple objective: capture the industrial complex, particularly the central storage tanks

'Robots, sir, faaaahsands of 'em'

Jus' chillin'. Chillin' in our wood

New Vedith shock troops take a pasting from their Autosentia counterparts

Endgame: huddle round the objective. A tight-run thing and could have gone either way: we called it a draw

We tried Gruntz with some modifications, notably:
-more detailed command system (which I liked)
-double wounds for infantry in cover (made them nicely survivable, but really reduced the impact of vehicles)
-modifications to the jump packs special rule
-some common sense tweaks, such as no dismounting infantry from fast-moving vehicles

Although it was fun, it was pnt quite righ and needed further tweaking. Samulus and I agreed to revisit again when 1.1 comes out, or try out some other systems.

On a final Gruntz note, there is an awesome Web-based force builder, available for free here:
Grunt-o-matic
Recommended - made making a force on a printable PDF a complete doodle. However it is restricted by the current Gruntz rules, it prevents bending them when designing units.

15mm SciFi - Power Armour and support weapons

Samulus has just started posting the background to the universe we've been working on to add some flavour to our 15mm SciFi forces. His post includes some pretty stonking artwork (not his own, he admits). I'll post some background to my home system, New Vedith, later.

In the meantime, I've more 15mm SciFi to share, first up is my first unit of Power Armour - five suits by Khurasan. I say Power Armour, but they clearly aren't as I can't see how a human would fit inside the torso comfortably. So, to me they are remote-controlled humanoid battlesuits. Still, they are awesome sculpts, a real pleasure to paint.

They form the shock infantry of my 'New Vedith' forces - heavily armoured, agile due to their jump jets and equipped with the latest plasma weaponry. With their pilots hundreds of miles away, they are also relatively fearless. To encourage audience participation, comment below if you've any ideas for naming them. I came up with the 'Armoured Assault Brigade', but I was having an unimaginative day as I think it's a bit bland.

'Big Stompy Armoured Suits' would be descriptive, but inelegant

To finish, a little extra I finished at the same time: some squad support weapons for my infantry platoons, one tripod-mounted heavy laser and one portable missile system. All GZG, magnetically mounted to metal bases.

In other news, the first issue of my WS&S subscription arrived last week. I did say I wasn't going to subscribe, but after some thought (and a discount) I did. I'm glad of that, getting a magazine full of hobby ideas popping into my letterbox every other month is nice. If expensive for the potential it offers for hobby inspiration!

EDIT: I've also just got an email notifying me that I won a digital subscription to one of WS&S's other magazines, for filling in a survey (I vaguely remember doing to). They've given me a voucher code which I can use on anything on their store - an extension to my WS&S subscription is in order, I think. That's the first thing I've won in ages, which is nice.

Living History and a few finds

I was in Peterborough this weekend, when they just happened to be a heritage festival in the cathedral grounds. It was pretty vast and completely free. Plenty of groups had pitched up camp, including good contingents of Romans, Vikings/Saxons, ECW and WWII reenactors. Poorest turnout was the Napoleonics - a pitiful two redcoats, compared to the 30 or so from the Sealed Knot doing ECW, including this gaggle demonstrating their musketry.

While wandering about town I found these in The Works (a UK discount store): two die cast vehicles from the recent Tron movie. I figured a quick repaint and they would make good non-military hover vehicles for 15mm SciFi.

They also had the board game 'Ponte del Diavolo' for £8, which I snapped up. There were a handful of Rio Grande board games and this seemed to be the best of the bunch. It filled a niche in the collection, a two-player area control game with a Venetian theme. We played a few games last night and it seems like a good filler game with quality wooden pieces, at a price you cant argue with, really.

Got some more playtests of Aegeus in the evening too, I'll post my snaps later, looking better already with my Minoans painted up.

I like surprises...[updated]

It was my birthday this week and true to form my brother grabbed me some hobby stuff. I'd pointed him towards the Critical Mass Games buildings, which I thought would make a good start to an industrial outpost for SciFi games. On first look they're really cleanly cast and well detailed, including interiors.

What I wasn't expecting was these two - scratch built (and painted!) SciFi wind turbines. I don't have a mini for scale to hand, but they're about 6 inches tall.

Apparently they're made from bits of Platformer kits. Pretty cool eh?

EDIT: these were a bit unstable as they're so tall. The addition of 50mm square bases improved the stability no end.

Unexpected presents are great!

15mm SciFi Command

Well, it was going to be one or two things this week, and the quicker job won out in the end. Nothing to do with the steady flow of packages that have been arriving with fresh goodies to prep!

Here we have my Command stand. Part of the pack from Khurasan's Nova Respublic range. I couldn't resist a commander in a massive hat and shiny medals - I used to play 40K Mordian Iron Guard! The blue uniforms came out quite nicely to match the much more armoured GZG troops which are the bulk of my infantry. I might go back and add some piping to detail the tunics more - or would this be fiddly overkill?

This pic was taken without flash - I find it can make the blue look far too electric.

I thought they made a nice diorama - the Commander reviewing a holo-map with his ADC to attention, while his platoon leader radios out commands. I borrowed the idea for the round base from some Napoleonic forces I've seen on Blogger - I think that it sets them apart nicely.

This time with flash, including the Platoon Medic (the same Khurasan pack) and a squad I finished at the same time (GZG). The two mix well and the lovely Khurasan ranges give me plenty of options for future expansion.

Transportation brainwave - but did it work?

Up visiting my brother this weekend, which usually brings with it a gaming case re-jig to get the models we need into one place. This time we've scheduled mythology and a dabble in 15mm Scifi. Being a new scale and project, I haven't sorted storage yet. In a hurry, I de-boxed my 10mm WWII, which are in A5 box files with magnetic strip stuck to the bottom, to stick the metal bases to. But darn it, I also needed a load of 28mms for mythology, which I carry in a well-used Figures in Comfort case.

What's in here...

Two A5 box files seem to fit perfectly instead of 1.5 trays standard trays...

This wasn't how they ended up.

No, despite my posed photo it didn't quite work perfectly, I think the long distance by train meant too much carrying with the case on it's side so some of the bases and individual miniatures had bounced free. Being magnetised probably saved them from bouncing around too much, but I saw a couple of chips.

But, I reckon over a shorter distance, in the car or just carrying the box file upright and they will be fine (being A5, they fit upright in a backpack). A cheap solution, so time to buy some more box files!

And the winner is...

...Red! Thanks all for your votes - find a snap of squads one and two below.

I decided to tone the visor back a bit and keep the pure red highlight around the top edge of the visor. As Curt suggested, I added a white flash too. I'm not entirely convinced it looks that realistic, but I like the effect. I may finish it with a gloss varnish on the visor, but they need their matt spray first.

Presents arrived from Khurasan today, yay, more to assemble!

Gruntz AAR and review

As Samulus describes, we played through a game of Gruntz the other night with my fledgling New Vedith Defence Force troops facing Samulus' robotic Autosentia. We threw together some stats for what we had as best we could and played around 100 points. I had two NV infantry squads with support weapons, a platoon command base (Mal standing in) and two IFVs which had fortunately arrived from Antenociti that morning.

The battlefield from the NV perspective. Terrain was cobbled together from what I had already, except the alien jungles I knocked together during the week from some plastic fish tank plants that Gharak gave me years back.

We were a but short on suitable counters, so used red gems for waxed (wounded) troops, blue for suppressed, White dice for a command 'push' order which grands a bonus action or for vehicle damage and a small green dice for prone which gave combat bonuses.

An NV IFV's laser and missile weapons take their toll on the Autosentia assault troops.

The IFVs spectacularly fail to bring their weapons to bear on the Autosentia mech, whose Gatling gun decimates an NV squad. The Mech was a bit overpowered for its size, something for us to tweak.

Autosentia light infantry combine fire and damage an IFV, which was helpfully laser-painted by the nearby drones. But NV infantry push forward and gun down the light robots. I conceded shortly afterwards, although close it was a rules taster rather than a competitive game and we wanted some time to discuss our thoughts.

So, what did we think? I'll start with some pros:
-really nicely presented and well-written rulebook for a bargain download price of £6. We struggled to find some specific rules (such as what flamers do), but overall a solid product
-interesting mechanics which seem to mostly work right. Although I wouldn't personally agree with all design decisions, such as the lack of a rate of fire, Samulus and I both felt it was a very good base which we could tweak to our taste
-easy to use unit-builder with a points system. We were happy to use it as a guide and bend the rules if needed. And having not played before, some of our first efforts were a little bit skewed - the mech too powerful and IFVs seemed pretty tough.

Cons? Happy to report there isn't much that we felt we couldn't tweak to suit with our own house rules. Something I'm increasingly happy to do, as I have developed pretty specific tastes in rulesets. These were the things we thought could be improved:
-command system. While we used the alternative activation rules and there is a small command element in the way you can use your command base, i think this could be deepened. I've already an idea for how to develop this further. Also, the need for a command base didn't really fit with Samulus's robot force.
-I can see the mathematic appeal of a 2D6-based combat system but it became a bit ungainly with our 8-man squads as we only had 5 different pairs of dice. We will try 4-man fireteams next, breaking out special weapons as attachments.
-the range of modifiers meant shooting became a bit maths-y, adding 2D6 plus stat, plus or minus modifiers, with a target number that could also vary from modifiers. We really needed a decent reference table and for personal taste I might streamline some of the modifiers.
-Gruntz sure died quick, even in cover. If we use smaller fireteams, I'm toying with the idea that cover and prone status should grant Gruntz an extra wound rather than a to hit modifier, from small arms fire at least. I don't think this will break the core system so we'll try it out and let you know how it works.
-Some oddities like equipping combat knife being optional, but free. I'd have thought all but the worst rabble would 'count as' having a ccw, be it knife, gauntleted fist or rifle-butt!

As I say, these opinions can pretty much all be easily fixed with house rules. I would definitely recommend people looking fir a ruleset to check out Gruntz.

Also, the author of Gruntz was kind enough to comment on Samulus' blog with his response so in the interest of balance, please see here. It is great to see that Robin is open to constructive feedback and I'm pleased to see that at least some of the points are already being tweaked for future editions.

Have a nice weekend, bloggers!

Cast your votes please!

Not the French Presidential elections. Not to help Greece elect a government. Not even for the winner of Britain's got Talent. No, this is the vote you've all been waiting for.

I'm undecided on how to paint the helmet visors on my GZG infantry. So I'm throwing the question to our hobby community. Which of these do you prefer - red or jade? It could go either way. Nail-biting, eh?

And with flash:

Assuming I keep the rest of the grey/blue colour scheme, if you have any other suggestions for good colours, I'm all ears!

Cheers,
Phil

SciFi project: first finished minis

I finished these 15mm Ground Zero Games UNSC infantry over the past couple of weeks. I've a whole platoon of them to do, but thankfully they are pretty quick to paint.

They are magnetically based onto steel FOW-size bases which I ordered from here:
http://www.freewebs.com/pwsltd/steelbases.htm

Highly recommend them, steel bases have a nice weight to them, he is happy to make custom sizes and delivered quickly. 

I haven't got the photography right at this scale as they've come out a bit bright, especially the blue, which is somewhat less lurid in real life (Vallejo magic blue). I'm not set on the red visors, though they are a standout feature. Might try a different colour on batch two. They really need a coat of matt varnish, but I'm all out. 

And this infamous smuggler captain and his first mate were among the freebies GZG were giving out at Salute.

Samulus of 'Life vs Gaming' and I are planning to test some rulesets out later in the week, I'll let you know how we get on.

The Projects

It's time for a list. After considering my Salute purchases (as well as the pre-Salute purchases and post-Salute purchases), I thought it fitting to document my current hobby projects and predict where they're going this year.

I'll start with a Pie chart. Unfortunately it doesn't illustrate anything except that I'm balancing limited hobby time across a number of projects. But I do like pie charts (and it adds a splash of colour to what could have been a long rambling post).

1). 28mm Napoleonics
Definitely in a consolidation phase. After two years I've a fair amount painted up and while I do have plenty more minis and terrain to paint up I intend to take a break from the most of it. I will get the Colours sorted on all of my painted units before setting it aside completely. I think next year Gharak and I will come back to gaming Napoleonics and I'll be enthused to pick up the brushes again.

2). 28mm Vikings for Saga
Six point force painted, one point left to finish. In an ideal world I'd buy one more unit of Bondi as an eighth point for maximum flexibility. But I can always add that later, for now I'm content that it is mostly finished and is something I might actually get a game of every now and then with people who aren't Gharak.

3). 28mm Pulp
This will rumble on (especially as Gharak and I are mid-adventure). After my early 2012 drive we've plenty of encounters to play with perhaps just the odd extra miniature required. As a varied project means it is great to drop Pulp figures into a separate painting project to mix things up a little. It also doesn't need much buying for it at the moment. Happily it will get gamed again this year: we need at least one more session this summer to get our heroes out of their current pickle!

4). 10mm WWII British
Was finished (!) as a platoon plus support, then I picked up a few more bits at Salute but they should be quick to paint up. I'm in a bit of a quandary with rules, but those purchases should give me a small Blitzkrieg Commander-sized force. At some point I'll buy BKC and twist Gharak's arm into a game or two or grab a game in my local area.

5). New project 1: 28mm Greek Mythology
Gharak is in the driving seat for this one, creating a complete skirmish game with fluff, rules and sometime down the road it's own miniature range. Ambitious as always, my brother. The game will be a skirmish scale with suitably heroic combat, set in an alternate world taking its inspiration from Greek Mythology. And my role? A mix of advisor, rules collaborator, playtester, painter and who knows what else! We're working on test forces for each faction, so I've the start of a Minoan force on my paint table, Minotaur and all.

6). New project 2: 15mm SciFi
While I didn't really need a new scale (or a new project right now!), I've been tempted to dabble in 15mm SciFi by Samulus. I've an order in with Ground Zero Games for a platoon of infantry and I'll grab my pick of cool vehicles and air support to face his Autosentia. Ive set on a colour scheme and written some fluff for my faction, which was a fun way to spend an hour. Again, not set on any rules as yet, but 15mm seems popular for SciFi, so I've no doubt we'll find something fun.

7). Resurrected project: 28mm Wild West
One on the horizon, after backing Blackwater Gulch with 20 of my hard-earned pounds. Resurrected because a few years back Gharak and I bought a bunch of cowboys and Legends of the Old West. Gharak built some terrain and I got some erm...half-built. We played a few games and set it aside. Once BG is released in the autumn I'll paint some cowboys and finish my terrain.

In summary, seven projects, four of them current. Eep, plenty to be getting on with...