First game of Age of Sigmar

Last night Duncan and I finally got together for a game night, and with all the buzz surrounding it we decided to give Age of Sigmar a go. Both of us were rather skeptical from the get go, but the freedom provided with the army building (i.e. just pick the models you want to use) and the promise of a quick and easy game lured us in to giving it a go.

So having packed a lot of miniatures that have rarely seen the table, I set off to meet up with Duncan at his place and we went through the motions of setting up a game, as per the rules and played with absolutely no modification... except for some units were we couldn't make them fit with the rules given.

For instance I had a Flesh Golem which I counted as a Crypt Horror Haunter - but normally in order to field such a unit I would need to have 3 of the things. Seeing as the rest of the game system relies more on the social agreement of having fun rather than overly competetative list min-maxing, we both agreed that it wouldn't really be a problem.

This is what Duncan fielded as his army. A long neglected collection of High Elfs from days of yore when that number of miniatures was all that was required for you to play a game of Warhammer Fantasy Battle. I had never seen them in the flesh and I'm pretty sure Duncan had great fun getting them back on the table. Notice all those damned Princes running around with their Charmed Shield - they're pretty damn hard to get off the table when you yourself don't rely on such magical trickery to win you the battle!

And this is then my hodgepodge collection of miniatures put on for this game. A good amount of Undead (soon to increase, once I get around painting all of my Mantic miniatures), with a couple of "Mercenary" units from by very small collection of Chaos Warriors and Orcs - an alliance of Evil, if you will, led by Niels - the Necromancer. To me, then we might as well have ended the game at that point - I was happy enough to have put all of these miniatures up for a battle - some of them freshly painted and others had been painted years and years ago and only now saw their first battle - such as this Snow Troll that I used as a Gorger in this game:

And not to forget these chaos warriors that I had painted up when I had the idea of starting an 8th Edition Warhammer Fantasy army and had to find the army with the lowest model count. Sadly, that never came to fruition (I got burned out almost instantly because of the number of models required - even for a low-model-count army such as this). So here they are then, on the table for the first time as well:

The initial turn saw us manouvering our flanks and slowly moving our centre towards each other. And by turn two we got stuck in. I won the roll-off for going first in turn two and was already within charge range of most of his units, and thus the undead horde shambled to war.

However, I hadn't enough models in any of the Skeleton Warrior unit to get their bonuses, but even then they stood their ground for a turn or two. I could easily see how you could completely overwhelm an opponent with these units - so it really does require you to think about what kind of experience you want out of the game. If you just want to win at all cost, you could easily do so. But if you want to have some fun, pushing around lead/plastic miniatures on the board and invent a narrative as you go along, then it's just as easy to go for this with minimal fuss.

With my center slowly falling apart I was doing what I could to get my right flank up to engage his left flank that was slowly coming apart. Those White Lions are pretty great but they couldn't really keep the flank secure. Unfortunately, my Chaos Mercenaries weren't overly interested in moving forward at this critical juncture - which meant that his center broke through!

My Cairn Wraith, along with some dismounted Hexwraiths out there on the far right, was doing what they could to get through and start mincing up his right flank. But alas, the Prince joined in on the battle and made short work of the Cairn Wraith - and then, with Duncan having initiative the next turn, he then proceeded to engage the Hexwraiths and stalled my flanking.

Meanwhile I tried, as best as I could, to stall his right flank going forward, with my Black Orc Big Boss (the ogre miniature here) taking out a Great Eagle, then surviving a round of fighting the Dragon... which then proceeded to make mincemeat out of him. Sad to see him go, but then again - it was to be expected - as great as a Orc Boss is, he isn't really kitted out to take care of a Dragon on his own!

As for the actual game, then it was really a great experience - so much so that it automatically triggered an idea in my head that I'm currently working on. It flowed really great and was easy to get into and play - but not so easy that it was devoid of any tactical decisions. In fact, there was a lot of tactical considerations in the game - provided, I think, that you play with "balanced" armies. Duncan had a Dragon which was, basically, impervious to most of what I had brought to the table. He wasn't himself overly keen on taking it but I did encourage him as he had just painted the thing.

Alas, it was a hard nut to crack - I simply didn't have any Mortal Wound causing units around that I needed to take care of it. The bloody thing had a Save of 4+ with a Charmed Shield, meaning that it would re-roll any failed Saves. Oh and it had something like 14 wounds as well!

But all in all - I had great fun! The game flowed really well and the freedom of choice - i.e. just put some miniatures on the table - was really welcomed. I'm pretty sure that was the main selling point for me, coupled with the fact that it was free to play as well. I for one welcome this new edition, if you can call it that, to Warhammer Fantasy and I'm hopeful for the future of the hobby with this new kid on the block. There's so much potential in this game for narrative scenarios and, provided that you play with likeminded people, then there's a ton of fun to be had by simply putting your miniatures on the table and get a game going!

As for what I'm tinkering on... well, I'll let you know in a week or so.

The start of (another) new project

So I was visiting Dragon's Lair in Odense yesterday, with my girlfriend, when I stumbled upon a grand clearance sale of all things Kings of War. And, well, here's the end result of that haul:

So I guess that it's fair to say that I'm starting a couple of new armies in the near future.

The above was only £35 (retails at around £210) and as fate would have it I had long been considering getting myself some Mantic miniatures for fantasy wargaming - just so that I could join up with the budding crowd of GOB-28 players and easily could convert others to a more fun version of Warhammer Fantasy etc.

So, now I have some 50 Elves, 58 Orcs and around 95 (more) Undead awaiting assembly and paintjobs... I'd say that's quite a fair amount to get going for GOB-games and possibly even for some playtest purposes in the future when I start work, in earnest, on a fantasy mass-battle game that I've had kicking around.

But... yeah, I'm still stunned at the volume of plastic I got home for next to nothing!

Rosetta Skirmish System - Playtest Edition

It is my great pleasure to finally be able to share with you the play-test edition for the Rosetta Skirmish System that Duncan and I have been working furiously on for the last couple of months.

This version is designed for science fiction games, with either 15mm or 28mm miniatures and is playable on a small board, in and around 2-3' by 2-3'.

The rules can be downloaded here.

And here's the small blurb from the introductionary text from the document itself:

So, here we finally are - the first edition of the Rosetta Skirmish System that Duncan and I started working on so many years ago now. This is a system that has been through many revisions and false starts even before it went out to the public. Tonnes of ideas, designs and notes have gone into this thing and what we have so far is what you see before you.

It is very important to note that this is far from the final look of the game. Instead what this document is, is the final edition of the core mechanics that are going to be used - sans the ton of play-testing that it needs to go through to work out all of the various kinks that undoubtedly will turn up.

The end result, once we get there, will be a complete set of skirmish rules. This will then be set to two settings that we've been working on over the years, one a fantasy setting and the other a science fiction setting. Thus, the idea behind the Rosetta Skirmish System was to create a set of core mechanics that could cover both of these settings and deliver a satisfying game experience - even if you chose not to make any use of the settings provided.

As a driving principle, we said that we wanted a gaming system which would be a lot of fun with no more than 10 figures per side, which could scale up if needed and with integrated mechanics that allowed for tense pick-up battles as well as for narrative driven campaign games. Hopefully you will think that we've succeeded in these principles.

Thus, here we are then - ready to let you, the people who come across this document on the internet, to have a go at the system as it stands right now. As said, this is by no means a finalized rulebook, but it will give a good glimpse into the next big project that we're launching, with regular updates available at Torben's personal blog: http://www.scatterbrainedwargamer.blogspot.com.

So, have a go and see if you like them; free of charge! But we do hope that you'd shoot us feedback or comments on our FaceBook page (Two Knights Publishing) or on our email: twoknightspublishing@gmail.com

May your dice always roll well,

Torben Kastbjerg & Duncan Thompson

Two Knights Publishing, April 2015

Rosetta Skirmish System - A Quick Solo Test

The reason as to why I've been so quiet of late is because Duncan came by a couple of weeks ago and had some really great ideas for what to do with the Rosetta rules that we've been working on and off for the last couple of years.

Basically the idea was to take some parts of Blood Bowl, some parts of Combat Zone, add a touch of God of Battles and blend it all up with a Warhammer 3rd Edition / Rogue Trader vibe and see what came out. And in my humble opinion - it's quite magnificent!

So here's my little attempt to show, rather than tell, what's up with this system of ours (well, most of it anyway - the devil is in the detail after all), why it has really struck a cord with me and why I have been devoting as much of my sparetime (and brain power) on it these couple of weeks since.

To play Rosetta Skirmish then you'll only need the following:

A board about 2-3' by 2-3', 3D6 with 1D6 (or more) in a different colour, markers for Snap-Fire, Defence, Strain (d10's), Out of Ammo (little d6's) and some tufts of cotton for Pinned. Oh, and a measuring tape.

For this solo-test I simply just chose five miniatures from my recently painted 15mm sci-fi forces; The Colonial Defence Force and The Arc Fleet Infantry to conduct a little wargame.

The game was set up just for a quick skirmish, with no special scenario rules or anything of the sort - it was just a straight up firefight to see how things panned out and if there needed to be some changes to the core mechanics. And so far, so good - it really seems like that the system Duncan and I have brewed up holds its own and all that we need to do is getting a lot of meat to these bones.

The first turn went to the Colonial Defence Force, and they were rather quick in moving up to the ruins and secure a good, solid firebase from the only piece of Hard Cover on the board. I don't exactly envision that what you see here is enough terrain for this kind of game, but it worked okay if a little bloody.

Players alternate in having Turns that are divided up into an Action phase and a Tally phase. During the Action phase then a player activates one of his models and performs a number of actions with it, according to its current State - typically a model would be Steady and have 2 Actions during an activation. Once all of his models have been activated - or if a Turn Over occured - you then proceed to the Tally phase were you make sure that your Strain Tally  is lower than your Breaking Point, which is equal to the number of models that you started the scenario with. After this, it then becomes your opponents turn.

During the very first turn of the game, the Colonial Defence Force managed to Wound one of the ARC Fleet troops - but then again, that is to be expected when you deploy them like a Napoleonic line. The normal "Contact!" scenario would not start by one side having all his troops on the board anyway.

Now, if a model is wounded, then you immediately add 1 point of Strain to that force. If they ever reach a total number of Strain (called the Tally) equal to or higher than their Breaking Point, then they will immediately withdraw and end the scenario. 

During your action phase then if you activate a model that is Wounded it must test to see whether it Recovers or succumbs to its wounds and Bleeds out; in either case it won't perform any actions whilst wounded. However during your Tally phase of your Turn, you modify your  Tally by +1 Strain for that phase only for each Wounded model that you have lying about, making it a dangerous prospect for your morale to just let your wounded men lying about.

The ARC Fleet soldier then attempts to avenge his fallen comrade. He tried to fire at the CDF marked with an Opportunity Fire marker, but both he and the Colonial Defence Soldier failed to hit with any of their shots, which saw the end of the ARC Fleets action phase.

While the turn sequence in Rosetta Skirmish is IGO-UGO, there are a couple of reactions that your models can perform, such as Snap-Fire which allows you to fire at an enemy model that moves into line of sight or that targets you for an attack. However, a model that uses such a reaction is then said to have Reacted and cannot perform any actions in your next Action Phase... unless you choose to Exert them, but we'll get to that.

The next Turn for the CDF went by alarmingly quick. One rifleman tried to move up to the corner of the ruin and then attempted to Exert himself so that he could gain an additional action, allowing him to perform an Aimed Shot at the ARC trooper near the bushes. But alas, he rolled the dreaded 1 on his Exertion test. Not only did this cause a Turn Over because it was a 1, but as it was an Exertion test, the CDF added 1 Strain to their Tally. 

The ARC fleet trooper valiantly dashed forward and attempted to Recover his Wounded comrade, using one of his actions for it instead of the model itself, hoping to get him back up on his feet. However, as the die shows, he rolled  a four and only gained a Brief Respite for the Wounded comrade. 

Meanwhile the rest of his comrades started to move out on the CDF left flank in order to circumvent the ruins, but failed to get any good lines of fire established. This left the ARC Fleet with no further option than to activate their Wounded soldier.

You must always activate all of your model, if possible, during an Action Phase. And models that are Wounded must always attempt to Recover during their activation and can perform no further actions if they manage to recover. Unfortunately, the wounded soldier only rolled a 2, which meant that he was Bleeding Out and was Out of Action, meaning that the model was removed from the game. This incurred a further point of Strain to the ARC fleets tally.

The CDF tried to gain lost ground at this juncture and formed small fireteams that kept the lead flying in the general direction of all ARC fleet troops that they could see. Unfortunately, most of them failed to hit; only two hits were scored.

Whenever you Shoot at an enemy model, then you compare your Ranged Combat (RC) value against their Defence (DF) value. If the RC was equal to or lower than the DF, you only roll 1d6. If, however, the RC was higher than the DF you would roll 2d6 and choose the result. As can be seen in this photo, the CDF scored a 5, meaning that he hit the ARC trooper. The white die means that he used Rapid Fire, netting him a +1 RC modifier, but also means that he has to roll a Wild Die (the white die). If the Wild Die ends up a 1 or 2, then he has run out of Ammo and must spend an action in order to Reload his weapon.

Once you have hit the target, you then roll 2d6 and add them together to see what the effect of the hit was. A score of 2-7 means that the target is Pinned, 8-10 means that the target is Wounded and 11-12 means that the target is Out of Action. In this case, the result was that the ARC trooper became Pinned.

On the CDF left flank however, a rifleman joined up to the Support Fire that the Leader was giving and managed to roll the above result! Double 6, which meant two results of Critical Hits, netting him a +2 modifier for his Damage Roll against the target - this could spell the end for the ARC Leader...

... Unless of course you roll a 4 on 2d6, which ended up a 6 with the +2 modifier - the Leader was only Pinned! 

Support Fire is an action that a model can take during its activation which grants all friendly models within 2" a +1 RC modifier against an enemy target that is in line of sight to both the active model and the model granting Support Fire - sort of how Assists work in Blood Bowl.

It then became the ARC Fleets turn to move. But seeing as all of his model that didn't React in the CDF players turn were all Pinned, his options were severely limited. So he chose to attempt to Rally his men... and unfortunately failed with all of them. Pinned models only have 1 Action during the Action phase (unless they rally and gain an additional action). So, in an attempt to have some comeuppance against the CDF, he tried to Exert his Leader and rolled a 3 - "Wearied" - and the leader did get an additional action... but at the cost of adding 1 Strain to the Tally. And just to kick the ARC fleet while they were down, he flopped his Aimed Shot against the CDF (rolling 2 and 2 - two misses) and thus ended their Action Phase.

This meant that the ARC fleet had a Tally of 3, with a +2 for having two Pinned models. The net result was a Tally of 5, equalling their Breaking Point and thus ending the scenario at this point.

Had the Tally been 4, then he would have automatically removed the Pinned markers from the models, giving him at least a fighting chance for the next turn.

So there we have it - three turns, and even though it was a solo playtest I really felt excited during the game as I was constantly weighing my options and how to best put the odds in my favour for both sides... not aided at all by some very bad die rolls at very bad times. 

Ah well, hope this has given you a bit of insight into the shape of things to come. I might, provided Duncan gives the go-ahead, release a very trimmed down and basic playtest rulebook on the blog so that you can give them a go yourself.

Till then, happy gaming everyone!

Lord Felix D'Arthoin

Just a very quick post of my first foray into using the Metal Vallejo Model Air Color line of paints. I have to say - I have no idea how I've managed without this line of paints!

He joins the unnamed band of City-State troops that I'm painting on and off inbetween projects. As fate would have it, I'm currently working on some cavalry for my 15mm Republican Guard as well - hoping to get them half-painted tonight on my first day of a looong weekend!

Fireteam Fatigue and Some Painted Miniatures (With Colour Guide)

It recently dawned on me that I'm currently suffering from a very specific kind of gaming fatigue - Fireteam Andromeda Fatigue.

Last week I finally got around to having a game of Fireteam Andromeda which, considering all the work I've put in it, should have left me overjoyed! But therein lies the rub of it - all the work. It seems that (and I don't know if other game designers share this experience) after all of the work that I've put into Fireteam Andromeda it has ended up sucking out all of the fun from the game for me.

By no means do I think it is a bad game - far from it! Apart from a few "clearly-a-first-ever"-game design things that have annoyed me, the game is solid, works and has given people great games. So, the product itself isn't really to blame. It is, and again I'm guessing because I don't really know any other game designers, simply due to stress and burnout after having put a lot of energy and effort into it. I just can't seem to play it anymore and just have fun with doing so, but always end up tinkering and considering stuff.

So with that out of the way, I still needed a game for my 15mm armies and the Terminus Nebula setting as well. Rather than re-invent a new game from the base up, I instead decided to do the time-honored thing and tinker with an already published set of rules.

This means that within a couple of days (real-life permitting) I'll post a bit about my Employment War modification for Bolt Action as well as upload it for the general public at large. Thus I hopefully can get back into gaming - for fun -  and get back into developing the Terminus Nebula setting... which, when I get back into gear, will become immensely helpful as I start development of the Mecha Legion 6mm wargame that I've been tinkering away with.

Anyway! All this rambling and wordyness needs to stop - I've also been painting whilst contemplating the fate of my 15mm gaming life!

First up is a squad of Republican Guards for the Republic of the Western Sphere. These troops have been around since the dawn of the Republic and haven't really changed neither uniform colour nor equipment (overly much) in the last 200 years. I painted them in simple muted colours to reflect their campaign on Earth as well as Mars during the Civil War. The colours used also match my Mecha Legion for the Republic as well - which was the intention all along!

• Fatigues / Uniform - Iraqui Sand (VMC), washed with Soft Tone (Army Painter) and then painted with Iraqui Sand (VMC) once more, leaving the darker tone in the recess.
  
• Helmets / Armour - Beige Brown (VMC), washed with Strong Tone (AP) and then painted with Beige Brown (VMC) again leaving the darker tone in the recess.
  
• Webbing - A simple coat of Umber Brown (VMC) which was washed with Strong Tone (AP).
  
• Weapons - The rifles were all painted using Gun Grey (VMA) with a two drops of Black (VMC) added in to tone them down, then washed with Nuln Oil (GW). The missile launcher was painted with Reflective Green (VMC), washed with Nuln Oil (GW) and then painted with Reflective Green once more, leaving the darker shade in the recess.
  
• Flesh - Was painted using Foundry's (urgh) tri-color shade of basic skin. This is the first and last time I'll ever use this so...
  
• Bases - These were painted with Flat Earth (VMC) and then given a drybrush of Cork Brown (VMC). I later found bought a bottle of Brown Sand (VMC) and will use this colour for drybrushing in the future.

Secondly we have a squad for my other Republican Army that I'm working on. I really should have gone for them being Alliance Patrol soldiers or similar - but oh well. They're a continuation of my trend of trying to paint the same uniforms for my sci-fi miniatures across scales, where possible. The miniatures are from Critical Mass Games (Arc Fleet Troops) and are really great high-tech footsloggers, if a slightly bit too small next to my Ground Zero Game miniatures (sheesh, this scale-creeping!). 

• Bodyarmor - Was all painted using Dark Blue Grey (VMC), given a wash of Dark Tone (AP) then painted with Dark Blue Grey again, leaving the shaded areas in the recess.
  
• Fatigues - Whilst barely shown, then these were painted Dark Grey (VMC) and then given a wash of Dark Tone (AP).
  
• Weapons - The casings were all painted Cold Grey (VGC), given a wash of Dark Tone (AP) and then painted with Cold Grey again, leaving the shaded areas in the recess. The few metal bits were painted with Steel (VMA) with a bit of Black (VMC) mixed in, then given a wash with Nuln Oil (GW).
  
• Visor - The visiors were first painted Flat Green (VMC) and then painted with Scorpy Green (VGC). It was then given a wash of Thraka Green (GW) and then painted once more with Scorpy Green leaving the shaded areas in the recess.
  
• Bases - Burnt umber (craft paint) which was then given a drybrush of Light Sand (Lifecolor)

Finally I also painted a Sister of Mercy Sigmar for yet another unnamed Fantasy Warband. This time we go up to 28mm and is more a showcase of the flesh colour I've finally decided on using, as well as just to spice things up a bit on the painting table. 

• Flesh - First a coat of Beige Red (VMC), then washed with a 70/30 or 60/40 mix of Red Ink (AP) and Soft Tone (AP). Then painted with Beige Red (VMC) again, leaving the shaded areas in the recess.
  
• Hair  - This was painted Brown Ochre (VMC), then washed with Soft Tone (AP). It was then painted using Brown Ochre (VMC) again leaving the shaded area in the recess.
  
• Tunic - First given a coat of Flat Green (VMC), then followed up with a coat of Iosan Green (P3). This was then given a wash of Strong Tone (AP) and painted with Iosan Green again, leaving the shaded areas in the recess.
  
• Non-armor Leather - This was painted English Uniform (VMC) and then given a wash of Strong Tone (AP). Painted with English Uniform (VMC) again, leaving the shaded areas in the recess.
  
• Leather Armor - Painted this with Bootstrap Leather (P3) and given a wash of Strong Tone (AP). Painted again with Bootstrap Leather (P3) leaving the shaded areas in the recess.
  
• Dress - Painted with Beige (VMC) and then followed by a coat of Menoth White Highlight (P3). This was then washed with Soft Tone (AP) and then painted with Menoth White Highlight again, leaving the shaded areas in the recess.
  
• Hammer - The shaft was painted using Foundry's Spearshaft paint (urgh), washed with Strong Tone (AP) and then given a basecoat of Foundry's Spearshaft again. The metal was painted using Steel (VMA) with a drop of Black (VMC) added. This was then washed with Nuln Oil (GW).
  
• Golden Bits - This was painted using Bright Brass (VMA) and then given a wash of Seraphim Sepia (GW).
  
• Base - This is then setting my new default for painting generic bases! A good coat of Flat Earth (VMC) followed by a drybrush of Brown Sand (VMC).

So there we have it - some painted miniatures and a new feature for the blog as well; the colour guide! I might have to revise the method of these in the future were I hopefully get around to write up an article on how I go about painting my miniatures in general. 

The paints used were mostly Vallejo Model Color (VMC) with a touch of Vallejo Model Air (VMA), Vallejo Game Color (VGC), Army Painter (AP) and the last time I'll ever use Foundry paints (which is a rant for another day).

Thanks for reading this far and let's see how quickly I can get the Employment War up and running!

Excitingly busy!

This is just a quick post to regain the momentum of continually blogging my various geek-adventures. Unfortunately, I'm not exactly used to take photos of the stuff that I'm doing, so the images are going to be a bit of a mish-mash of others photos and stockimages.

So, let's start from the beginning then!

Cuthberts Lament

Last weekend I had the great fortune to play a good friend of mine's Viking scenario for Lion Rampart. The scenario was a raid against a saxon village in order for the vikings to recapture Cuthbert, a poor Saxon who they believed gave them good fortune at sea!

The game itself flowed very well and the scenario was quite interesting in that we were two players on each side and each of us had our own private scenario objectives that we had to take care of. Mine was to make sure that Sweyn, that swine, didn't make it back to the longboat as my character Torbein (!) wanted to be Chief instead of Sweyn. Luckily, Cutberth managed to take care of Sweyn for me and Torbein managed to kidnap Cutberth back to the boat - and Sweyns men managed to capture his sister whilst Uther, the saxon turncoat, managed to make away with his wife. Not exactly the best of days for this saxon - but a great day for those gathered at my home to play the scenario.

You can read a bit more about it here.

VoldCon
This weekend I then attended VoldCon, a small boardgame convention in Fredericia. It was hosted by another friend of mine and around 35 people turned up throughout the weekend and played boardgames till they dropped.

My personal favourite gaming experience for the weekend were the games of Empires of the Void that I managed to host during the weekend - only to learn of a great, and free, expansion to it called Key to the Universe which I've just finished cutting out and getting ready. Whilst I liked the initial game, there were somethings that I felt was lacking quite a bit unfortunately. These seems to have been tidied up and fixed with this expansion, so I'm looking forward to giving them a try as soon as possible.

The other game that I found really interesting was called Warfighter and it is basically a solo/co-op wargame of sorts where you have to fight your way through a couple of locations to reach your end objective with a squad of soldiers. The mechanics are quite simple, but interesting and the cards really managed to deliver theme and flavour by the truckload - so much so that I'm considering making a pimped out version of it (if I manage to get a copy for myself), with miniatures and terrain. It might just end up being a 2015 project.

Other things
Work has been quite busy as of late, so there's really not much to show from the paintdesk; the few things that I have made still need some more work and are not ready to be shown to the internet till next week. Mainly I've been working a bit on Fantasy Nebula and been painting some miniatures as well for that game. I'm hoping to get cracking on Fantasy Nebula in earnest (and find a new name for it!) later this month.

However, I'm slowly getting more and more in the mood for some Fireteam Andromeda gaming, will need to see if I can round up a voulenteer or two and hopefully get a fully fledged battlereport going. Fingers crossed!

The start of my Infinity Army

So - these have been quite some time in the running, but as I'm getting ready for a quick "learning-the-rules" demo game tonight, I figured I'd share with the lot of you how far I've gotten with my Morat Agression Force army.

The grand total of painted miniatures for my army.

Seeing as you only need a handful of miniatures in order to play Inifinity (more than those pictured, mind you) I decided that I did not want to go through my usual regimented motions of speedpainting the whole lot in one sitting - but rather take my time with each individual model, paint it up as nice as possible (whilst cutting my usual corners), base it up and get it all done before progressing to the next one.

These are some great miniatures, I'm nowhere near qualified enough to do them justice.

So - that's the main reason as to why there's only three models painted so far. I started out with all of the more "special" units that I had from the starter box and I'm slowly working my way through the rest of the army... which, because the miniatures are way too expensive for my tastes, only consists of a couple of grunts and some more grunts with Heavy Weapons. Once they're all done, I'll look into getting additional reinforcements and do this army as stated - buy one model for it, paint one model for it.

I really, really love this model - and as such he was the first to be painted up.

Oh and I hope that you'd notice that I've managed to figure out the lighting and camera setup for taking pictures of my miniatures now - turns out my camera had an auto-whitebalance thingy which helped immensely; barely any post-processing involved in these pictures. Huzzah!

Getting into a painting-zen

Here's me then, trying to get the hang of actually updating the internet about the ongoing hobby-stuff that I'm currently working on. How other manage it with a full-time job and a big family I'll never be able to understand; it seems to me to be a bit of a hassle sometimes... but I guess it's just about experience, persistence and other tences. Ah well, back to the grinder!

It is still not my second nature to take pictures of everything I do in my hobby-life, but today I happened upon something that will - at the very least - make those pictures that I do take a whole lot more interesting to look at. Ladies and gentlemen may I present to you...

The Transmorgraphical Landscape-o-Matic! (Patent Pending)

Okay, so it doesn't look like all that much, but I'm pretty happy about the end result. It came about when I was doing the usual commute back from work and was contemplating how I could make this here blogging/updating process easier for myself (because even though I tend to moan about it, I do enjoy sharing my stuff on the web).

One of the things that I thought of was that I often found my pictures to look a bit rubbish what with all the paint-bottles in the background and all. That and I also wanted something a bit more gradient background in general to showcase my miniatures on.

So I had a scrap of foam-card lying about that I had already been painting a sky backdrop on a couple of months ago and then I had an ephinany; paint one half as a small bit of land and keep some of the sky on the other half - then do a single half-cut of the foam-board and voila, instant backdrop that is not a hassle to store or set up!

A Swordmaster for an Arabian-themed faction.

With this I can then easily set it up on my painting area of my table (where my best lamp of the house is also located), snap some photos that looks slightly better than before and then easily pack it away when I need to do some actual painting.

Speaking of which, I'm currently on a bit of a fantasy-bender when it comes to painting miniatures. I have a whole slew of various miniatures that I'm working on for a game that I'm also working on. So far it is just called Fantasy Nebula as it takes the base-rules for another skirmish-set I was writing and places it in a fantasy universe instead.

A Templar and Sergeant for a more European-themed faction.

I'm hoping to hit some sort of Mordheim and Necromunda hybrid game, with all the usual campaign shenaningans of those games - but hopwfully also with some more checks and balances to keep it from spiralling out of control as the two mentioned games had a tendency to do. I will, of course, keep you posted on developments on the game (and I'm guessing a play-test version will be in the works soon enough).

And to help my playtesting I've started on not only one but five different warbands that I'll most likely showcase as soon as I've managed to write more about the game than just some few scattered notes here and there - you know, when there's actually something that a person could read and actually decipher!

Anyway - thanks for reading and I'll update you, at the latest, next week!

The start of a new army!

So, I couldn't quite keep up with my initial promise of at least one post a week. Sometimes it just feels like that real-life has a tendency to conspire against you whenever you set yourself a goal. Ah well, I digress.

Whilst all manner of stuff was going on in my personal life I still managed to paint up and finish off the first couple of units for a new Fireteam Andromeda army that I'm making right now. I've gotten this crazy idea that I'm going to finish off all (or almost all) of my 15mm purchases - from last year - this year.

And here's the start of it then; the 317th Republican Regiment "Giant's Shadow". They're supposed to be a recon/forward element of a Mecha Legion that I'm brewing up for the 6mm adventure at some point. Oh and the colourscheme is the same as for a 28mm platoon of the same name - so this is then the first step towards a cross-scale platoon that I'm building. Fancy that!

Two squads of Power Armour (Blockhead troops from Critical Mass Games)

A medium hover tank - I intent to use this as some sort of support vehicle for the force which will primarily be airborne or some sort of walker/battlesuit. (Shaman Mercenary Tank from Brigade Models UK)

A squad of Engineers - makes life as a mechanized force much, much easier. (Engineers from Ground Zero Games, Droid from Laserburn)

And finally a squad of heavy combat drones. (2mm Mechs from Ground Zero Games)

So there we are - the first steps towards a completed army. The colourscheme came about because I wanted something that would stand out but also have a look of urban-ish combat to them (without complex camouflage schemes). I think they look really great and I'm looking forward to paint up the Airborne element of the army (I've got two Old Crow Landers that I'm looking forward to paint up with some Critical Mass Games ARC Infantry).