New year New project

This year, the project is Alaitoc Eldar, aka classic banana heads.

My kid is busy working away at the Vanguard Space Marines that Santa brought for Christmas, and given that we have the 8th edition Index set, and the 9th edition rules, games of 40k are in the offing!  I could finish up some Imperial Guard, or paint a bunch of Tau, or paint old Space Marines, but I thought it would be more fun for us to work on something new together (never mind that I have 1/10th of the free time).  So Eldar. 

I have been collecting these figures with the idea to making an Eldar force for... 15 years?  Probably more. A quick perusal of Index Xenos 1, and a small list is drawn up. 

Seen above we have a Dire Avengers squad (10 figures), five Fire Dragons (including an Exarch that I got "new" out of a blister just for this project), a Warlock for a command figure, Guardian heavy weapon (either star cannon or bright lance options), five swooping hawks, and then ten metal guardians to start things off on the right foot. Off camera are five rangers enjoying a bath in simple green, and five metal Wraith guard. 41 figures in all, which is about what I usually paint in a good year...  

I uh... have a lot more.  A LOT more, but this seems like a good place to start, and it is roughly the number of power points that the kid has. 

More to come, as my wife was away for a day and I had time after the kids were abed to assemble the Guardians and the Dire Avengers! 

Brigade Miniatures order

Midway through last month, I took advantage of the annual Brigade Miniatures holiday sale to order some bases and a few other things (it was pretty hard to resist testing out 15mm scifi, or getting a swath of space ships).  I ordered on the 14th, and it made it to my house on the 24th, which is pretty impressive for international shipping, particularly during the holiday season.

The main thrust of my purchase was to get these nifty bases that Brigade has for use with my Trek project.  I figure these bases will be great for tracking drones, missiles, plasma, fighters, and shuttles.  Each base is comprised of a metal hex with a die dock in the top, and a 3mm hole for a flight stem.  I got three varieties of micro dice to fit in the docks, and I will either use spare GW flight stems or buy some 3mm acrylic rod.

Shown with GW flight stem

I also bought a few packs of space fighters and other ships for multiple uses.  They could be used as fighters and shuttles in a Trek game, or on their own as micro fighters in a space game, such as 5150: Fighter Command by THW.  (which allows for solo play too)

Here is a sample of the fighters and other light craft.

Courier to fighters

 In addition to the "good guy" fighters, I got a transport and a corvette, as well as a pack of enemy fighters.

Anyway, a great buy from Brigade Miniatures, and inches me closer to having a complete Trek gaming set.  Now if only the magnets I ordered from China would show up.

Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin

My favorite piece of art from the whole series 

Over the last couple years I have been slowly reading Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin, a manga retelling of the popular animé show.  Set in the Universal Century year 0079, the story follows a now standard trope of inexperienced youths thrust into military conflict by circumstance, and then growing to excel in various roles as the war progresses (itself a type of Bildungsroman).

The animé was first broadcast in 1979, and this manga was started in 2002 and is written and drawn by Yoshikazu Yasuhiko, who was the original character designer for the TV series. Rather than being a strict retelling of the TV show, The Origin adds considerable material and restructures some of the TV show events into a more plausible order.

In 2013 Vertical started releasing the books here in the US in a hardback format.  These are amazing books made in the aizōban style, which means that they are thick hardbacks, super high end paper, numerous color pages, and generally a limited release.  Each volume also has accompanying essays about the importance of Mobile Suit Gundam in Japanese culture or in the anime/manga industry.  Ending with 12 volumes, the work is quite spectacular. Really recommend this series.

Zenon forces at the battle of Odessa

The Blackstars

The two main characters at Gibraltar

Gundam at rest

Battle Scene from book XII

War in the Gundam universe is mainly fought by small warbands of mechs, 60 feet tall, with short range automatic tank caliber guns and close combat weapons, which are prevalent due to the hand-wavium of "Minovsky particles" which prevents such things as radar from working at all, and degrades higher frequency sensors as well.

Gaming the Gundam universe is probably best suited by a set of rules that allows for detailed skirmishes between the warbands, where each Gundam is perhaps treated more like a fighter plane with pilots of different skill rather than using detailed mech rules.  Since ranged fire is only for eliminating mooks and large targets, some sort of dueling skill would be needed to dice off the close combat.  Tanks and infantry and so on are prevalent, but then are often mere annoyances to be swept aside with a single hit.

In terms of figures "Gunpla" is a huge source that can not be ignored.  The term refers to the hobby of building scale models of Gundam (and other robots), and there is such a huge market in Japan (and elsewhere) for these figures that they are available for all configurations of Gundam seen on screen or page, and probably more that never were.  Kits range from your standard plastic model from the early 80's to the totally poseable HG (High Grade) kits with internal skeletons, replaceable hands, and pieces molded in multiple correct colors to minimize or eliminate the need for painting.  The majority of the kits are 1/144 scale, which roughly equates to N/12mm, which is a bonus given the popularity of that scale for model railroad buildings.  Happily this also works well with the boom in 10mm scifi gaming, at least for terrain and civilian vehicles, if one is a purist about military vehicles.

2017 Plans

Since it seems like the time to discuss the plans one has for the forthcoming year, here are mine.

I want to paint a bit more, play a few more games, and clear out some of the accumulated clutter I have gathered over the 20(!) years of hobby.  To that end, I am trying to set some actual goals, plan out purchases in advance, and possibly plan a hobby/game day with some buddies. Plus sell things.

Sell:
I actually went through some of my many boxes and pulled out a number of items that I can possibly live without.  This is very hard for me, because I have a fairly good memory of what I wanted to do with each item, and feel bad about giving up on the projects.  However, things must go! So in the next month or so I will pitch a lot of it up on Ebay.  Ideally it will garner enough to offset the items below.

Buy:
I need a few new paints to accommodate some new paint schemes and widen the color pallet
Grass tufts to replace those used up and widen the color pallet
Uyumaru to allow for some part duplication
a couple of boxes of figures
an assortment of bitz to finish off other projects (which somehow comes out to quite a lot of money!)

Build/Paint:
Terrain so I have something to game over besides a few cardboard boxes 
Harlequins (Ebay surprise aquisition)
Sisters of Battle repaint/finish
and the Baneblade at last!

Challenges: Besides the possibility of the lure of Ebay throwing a spanner in the works, I tend to be very slow at painting and finishing projects, am easily distracted by new projects, and we may be moving house this year as well.  So no promises that any of the above will really happen!

Photography Background

As my "construction" phase of Inq28 figures draws to a close (at least for these first miniatures), and I get closer to painting the blighters, I started to think about how to best present them. In this I do not mean "in a case" or textually, but how to make them appear to be the most suited for their environment through photography.

Presentation is something that first entered my head first I think from JRN, talking about placing a miniature in its environment through building a bit of terrain for photography.  Migsula, and duo of the spiky rat pack similarly have used terrain pieces to "place" a figure in the world, and let you get a better sense and feel for the figure, rather than just using a blue backdrop.

So, with the above filling my head, I have been thinking about making a "stage" or "set" to act as a photography background for the figures as they are completed.  I have been thinking about the specific elements for a few years, but have never gotten much beyond that.  It is also the intent of the project to act as a testbed for various terrain techniques, both to see if I like the results, and as a way to practice what I have been reading about online for the last 18 years, but do not currently have the space to bring to full fruition.

Anyway, enough waffle, here is a picture of my initial sketch in cardboard:

The builders of Fasho IX were somewhat limited in their materials...

There are three buildings shown, plus some extra small items to tie them together. Measurements are fairly close to my original plan, within the limitations of using scissors on cardboard! In this plan, I would end up with brick textures, three types of concrete, asphalt, wood, and a few types of metal.

My wife had some excellent input about this setting and suggested that I make it taller, increase the width of the whole setup, add a wooden texture, and consider a backdrop between the two buildings.  She also thought it would be interesting to make it more modular, but after playing around with some sketches, I discarded the idea as being too complicated for this purpose.

Anyway, there it stands.  Might remain cardboard for a while, or I may have a flurry of productivity, and it will suddenly lurch into completion.  Any thoughts?

Lead Painter League 8

As I mentioned last year, Lead Painter League is a contest put on by the excellent Lead Adventure forum.

Here are the rules for this year. Changes are that photography is further limited, and that the bonus themes are just one team, rather than having one or more of them with two opposing teams.

And the bonus themes this time around are "Fantasy", "Ancient World", and "Great War", the last of which is obviously quite topical.

Even if you do not particpate (although you should!) it is certainly worth browsing the contest entries as they are in the main, quite excellent.  The competition starts March 22nd, and there are only 50 spaces available, so get painting.

Napoleonic Company Level

The Wargamer's mind is a fickle thing [and possibly not the most stable].  Far too often when browsing about the Internet, or reading books, or even walking down the street, a new idea springs to mind.

Fortunately [for me] I have a blog to get such ideas out "on paper" so that they can be developed without the expenditure of money. (as with Eldar corsairs for Inquisitor, or Song of Ice and Fire skirmish games)

Today I stumbled upon an interesting blog through links from other blogs, which I probably reached originally from links in blogs I follow.  You know, as one does. In this case it was Matt's Gaming Page, and scrolling down, I noticed a lovely, and well illustrated battle featuring the British and French slugging it out in a company level battle.  Wait... company level?  Now that is exciting. 

A French company had something on the order of 140 men officially; but in reality it would be somewhat smaller, and if the ordinary privates get left out, you have a more colorful little army of around 50-60 figures.  The British and other allies likewise had similar sized companies, and could be reduced in a similar fashion.

In the post, Matt mentions that he used the Ganesha Games rules 61 65, which are designed for fighting the American Civil War at a company level. GG also makes the Song of Drums and Shakos for smaller level Napoleonic skirmish, and that book says it includes profiles for 160+ troop types from all major nations [Online squad builder here].  I wonder how compatible the stat lines are, and if you could combine the books to make a 03 15 variation...

Lovely paint job on Perry box FN100

My first inclination would be to look to Perry for the figures, but their own range is aimed at the 1815 period, which can be limiting in some aspects, as the uniforms and equipment changed somewhat through out the wars.  The Perrys also sculpted a large and fairly comprehensive range for Wargames Foundry, and the Eureka French Revolutionary Wars range could also be useful for earlier battles (or for units that did not change uniforms).  Victrix too has a large plastic range, which is perhaps more suited to skirmish gaming as well.

Wargames Foundry b50

The Napoleonic period is so colorful, it would be very exciting to paint some larger scale figures [also more difficult], and get some games in.  Now I just need more time!

Pathfinder

There is a movement afoot to collect some like minded friends of mine to play some sort of D&D-ish game online using Roll20.  After some back and forth, we may have settled on Pathfinder as our rules of choice, despite it being a new rule set to all of us!  Glad I am not the DM for this one.

Poking around online, there are some great tools for Pathfinder, which is useful because all the feats and preferred classes and whatnot get pretty complicated for someone like me.  Also, being based on the OGL/SRD material, the Pathfinder rules are available online, which gives you most of what you need to get going [although obviously without all the cool art and flavor text in the real $32 book].

So at some point in the near future, I may be playing a belligerent Elf Oathsworn Paladin... more to follow if it comes to pass.

Camouflage Schemes

I have been thinking about the camo schemes for some of the ex-Imperial Guardsmen in my Inquisitorial retinues (and probably in odd bits of guard gear for others too).  So I painted up a few sample squares as a test.

About life size on my monitor

As it happens, I have somewhat color deficient vision, so some of these look like muddled messes to me (which of course they may very well be).  For example, my wife likes #4, but it only has about 2.5 colors for me, rather than the 4 that are actually present.  Since these patterns are going to be about 1/4 this size, it may make sense to select ones that are more defined.

What do you think?  Do you have a preference?

X-Wing Miniatures

This weekend we celebrated my birthday, and my lovely sister and her family gave me the X-wing Miniatures starter from Fantasy Flight Games.  This apparently wildly popular game uses 1/270 scale fighters, secret orders, and a whole host of chits, cards, and cardboard templates for movement to enact Star Wars fighter duels and skirmishes. [rulebook may be read here]

Picture from Wired Magazine

The basic box comes with three fighters, the various chits/cards/cardboard to get you started, and then you need to buy booster boxes that have additional fighters and cards.  Cards are used to have "upgrades" like famous pilots, torpedoes, extra shields and so on. Currently, you can get most of the fighters from the movies and a few bigger things like shuttles, Slave One, and the Millennium Falcon.

There is quite a lot of online interest in this game, and people have created Deathstar tiles, squadron builders, star field mats, plastic rulers, and much more to add on to this game, even rules for corvettes and similar sized ships. [the out-of-print Electronic Rebel Blockade Runner Ship can be had for $30 on eBay and is a pretty good size, even if not quite scale]

LucasArts long ago pre-programed me to be excited by this game, as I put in hundreds of hours playing X-wing, Tie Fighter, and X-wing vs Tie Fighter when I was younger.  As for actually playing the game, my son squealed "Tie Fighters!" when he saw the box, so apparently he is into it... but he is too small to play it yet.  So actual play may have to wait until I can muster up some friends for a couple of duels.

Lead Painter League 7

One of my favorite forums is Lead Adventure, which while somewhat specialized in Pulp/Back of Beyond/Swashbuckling, has a level of project excellence amongst its membership which is unequaled, and for that reason alone is worth visiting.  One of the delightful aspects of the site, is that it runs a contest called "Lead Painter League" where the weekly regiment/team/squad entries of painters complete against one another for 10 rounds, and points are accrued to generate an overall winner (paint off in event of a score tie).  Rules for Season Seven have just been released here.  (Season 6 entries are here, for reference)

This year's round bonus points are for a Command Team (round one), Civil War (historical, round 5), and Sci Fi (round 10).

Here are some thoughts on how to win, or at least do well in the competition by Captain Blood, multiple winner of the LPL and clearly excellent painter (or is he just trying to throw readers off the game?).

While painting 50+ figures during the duration of the League would be pretty heroic for me (in stark comparison to my anemic output these last few years), it would also decrease the ol'lead/plastic pile a bit...  something to ponder.

So get painting!

Random Inqusitor Warband Generation

You may have noticed that an "Oldhammer" day is forthcoming at Wargames Foundry (31st August of 2013), and that one of the events at the same is a Realm of Chaos Warband bash, the rules of which are located here.  Based on the bonkers early Chaos rules as presented in Realm of Chaos: Slaves to Darkness, players create a "hero" and then make their retinue to form a warband.

So what about random inquisitor warband generation?  To be sure, most options are constrained by available bitz and base figures, but leaving that aside, there is something to be said for random generation of characters.  Random generation often leads to different ideas than you might have if you were planning things out more rationally, giving a different set of strengths and weaknesses, and for role playing games, can create emergent role play just from stats alone.

Example Process for generating a random Inquisitor and Warband:

Roll for Starting Profile: 3d6

3 to 4	Level 4 Psyker
5 to 6	Level 3 Psyker
7 to 8	Level 2 Psyker
9	Level 1 Psyker
10 to 11	Level 1 Blunt
12 to 13	Level 2 Blunt
14 to 15	Level 3 Blunt
16 to 18	Level 4 Blunt

[4 is better than 1, Level 1 rolls 5 times on the retinue chart, level 2 4 times, level 3 3 times, and level 4 twice, Psykers level 2 and higher roll one fewer times on retinue list]

Retinue List

3d6	Name	#	Included Concepts
3	Alien, Other	1	Ork, Tau, jokaero, Necron, Human Null, Vespid, Hrud, Zoat, etc.
4	Alien, common	1	Craftworld Eldar, Kroot, Harlequin, Squat
5	Creature	d2	wardog, grinx, servo skull, cyberhound, watcher in the dark, psyber eagle
6	Mutant	d3	twist, scaly, Ogryn, Ratling
7	Investigator(s)	d3	Enforcer, arbite, police officer, detective
8	Assassin(s)	d2	Death cultists, blades for hire, bounty hunters
9	Adept(s)	d3	Scribe, savant, researcher, dialogous
10	Guardsmen	d4	Veteran, recruit, mine wiped, retired, skitarii
11	Acolyte(s)	d2	Acolyte, interrogator, Explicator
12	Scum	d6	Thug, muscle, gun slinger, servitors, body guards
13	Cleric(s)	d3	Preacher, abbot, missionary, confessor, Commissar
14	Techpriest	1	Priest, enginseer, electro priest, magos
15	Psyker	1	navigator, astropath, battle psyker, witch, telekine, mystic, sage
16	Sister(s) of Battle	d3	SoB, Crusaders, repentia
17	Space Marine	1	Deathwatch, seconded marines, Grey Knight
18	Daemon host	1	Bound, unbound, daemon weapon

Fluff rolls:
d6 Ordos: Malleus/Hereticus/Xenos/Other
d10 Philosophy: Thorian, Amalathian, Monodominant, Istvaanist, Recongregationist, Xanthist, Antiquarist, Casophilist, Horusian, Other
d6 Sex: M/F/Unknown
d8 Home World Type: Feral, Hive, Imperial, Void, Schola Progenium, Noble, Forge World, out of sector (names if you have them)
 
Thoughts?  Obviously the infamous d1000 personal attributes table is missing, but I am sure we can fudge something together...

Useful links:
Dice Roller:
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/dice/dice.htm
Inqusitor stat roller:
http://www.geocities.ws/dagwklub/Inquisitor/random.html
Name Generator:
http://www.malleus.dk/Ordo/NameGenerator.aspx
Dark Heresy character generator
http://www.malleus.dk/Ordo/NpcGenerator/Default.aspx

Warmaster Empire

If you have not noticed yet, Ebay has a redesigned front page for logged in members.  Previously this page was a bit spare, and had the last few items you looked at, and a few "deals" and other advertisements.  Now, it has that, and it also has a Pinterest style "feed" which has pictures of items for you to scroll through.  These items are based on interests that you enter, and have a certain level of sorting and filtering built in, so that you see them as you would like.  It is an interesting way to explore Ebay, and could lead you to see something that you really must have, although it is still new and a little buggy.

Which leads me to Warmaster.  One of the interests suggested by Ebay based on past searches and purchases was Warmaster, and in refining that interest to exclude satanic black metal bands, I began looking at auctions for Warmaster miniatures, when then led me to conduct a survey of my existing blisters and boxes.

Currently I have about 1200 points without any heroes, upgrades, or magic. [Naturally all unpainted]  Adding in the heroes and magic brings me to around 1600, at which point I now need a compulsory pair of crossbow regiments.  I also apparently lack a Helblaster, and could probably do with another flagellant regiment and 1-2 more pistolier regiments.  Adding those things brings me nicely to around 2000 points, and seems as if it would give a rather nice game as well.

Here are a few useful Warmaster links:
Games Workshop page
Rules part 1
Rules part 2
Warmaster Armies (rule book for 15 armies)
Rick's Warmaster (being the author)
Brumbaer's Warmaster (many useful articles, and figure comparisons)
Living Rules

Middle Earth terrain mat

I have long wanted to have a proper games table, fully done up with modular terrain tiles, undulating surfaces, hills, forests, etc. Such a table could be used for many games, and would look lovely during play, which is really the goal. However, lack of time, money, and space have conspired together to prevent this from occurring.

A terrain mat, on the other hand, gives many of the benefits of a bespoke terrain table, and has the advantage of being much cheaper and easier to store (as one simply rolls it up). While it does not have movable components like a modular table, nor does it do integrated hills quite as well, it does have the ability to have items places under it to create terrain contours, which can be good for rolling terrain. There are many manufacturers of terrain mats, ranging from painted felt, as exemplified by Hotz mats, to latex, as exemplified by Zuzzy. Both types are somewhat pricey, however, you certainly get a quality product in the end (and with Hotz you can get a double sided mat for $20-$80 more depending on type and size).

Yes, this please (for 10mm)

Another option is to make your own mat, which of course trades a certain amount of for some (potential) savings in terms of cost.  Several times I have seen picture of people using canvas mats covered with acrylic caulk and flock, and they look quite nice, and remain flexible. As an added bonus, you can mount the canvas over rubber foam tiles (like for the floor) and then pin mount trees or other terrain to the board for a more realistic look.

more of a 3d look for larger scales

Here are some tutorials to make them:

Classic for 10mm
http://www.flickr.com/photos/76935015@N03/sets/72157629346115756

Using rolls of canvas
http://tobispaintpot.blogspot.com/2012/10/a-new-horizon-tutorial-for-flexible.html

Using more of a three dimentional aspect:
http://www.lead-adventure.de/index.php?topic=31358.0

Artist canvas
http://finiatures.blogspot.com/2011/09/making-terrain-mat.html

Desert
http://1000footgeneral.blogspot.com/2012/11/desert-wasteland-wargame-terrain-cloth.html

In researching for this, I was reading about the Battle of Five Armies (Bo5A being the game I am most likely to get going on this terrain), and while looking at maps of the battlefield, I have decided that it is similar enough to the layout for the Battle of the Hornburg to make the mat work for both with some small adjustment.  This should also be usable as a generic Dirtside or FoW table as well, as grass and dirt are fairly scale agnostic (and some large scale scatter terrain, trees, or fur fields will help as well for 15mm games).

So, at some time in the (hopefully near) future I will build one of these mats, and it will be glorious.  The only trick will be getting a game on it...

Christmas 2012

A belated Merry Christmas to you, dear readers.  I spent most of the holiday away in a mountain cabin, safe from shopping hordes and TV.  We played a couple of games of five player Settlers, and a ton of the new Mario for Wii U.

This year I got only a few gaming/modeling related items, although they were pretty great ones!

First, I got "The First Heretic" from my wife's cousins.  This is the next book for me in the Horus Heresy series, although at this point I believe that the series has devolved into more of a category, rather than a linear progression.  Looking forward to reading this one after I finish Embassytown.

Second, I got the AD&D dungeon master's guide from my wife, which was very cool and surprising.  I read this book for the first time last year, as you no doubt read here.  The particular copy that I got is in very good condition, was printed in 1979, and has a $10 price sticker on it from Toys R Us, clearly from the glory days when RPGs were stocked in what is now mostly a diaper and video game store.

The third modeling item I got is a Revell Republic Star Destroyer (Venator) from my sister and her family.  A kit I have long lusted over is at last mine!   Thank you Amazon lists!   At some point in the near future, I will have finally finished building the Baneblade, and will be able to move on to this kit as my "main" build. (Since the Baneblade took three years, I expect that this might take a while too).  I think that I will go big on this one, and try some super detailing, photo etch, and after market kit add-ons... maybe even light it!   So very excited about this, and expect to see more in the future.

Here is a pile of inspirational links for later:

Floating display base, not mine.

http://www.aircraftresourcecenter.com/Gal12/11801-11900/gal11875-Star-Destroyer-Westall/00.shtm
http://jenandjamesmcvay.blogspot.com/2012/01/james-republic-star-destroyer-detail.html
http://www.scalemodeladdict.com/index.php?topic=148.0
http://gillesv27.blogspot.com/search/label/%E3%83%AC%E3%83%99%E3%83%AB%20Republic%20Star%20Destroyer
http://dqscaleworks.blogspot.com/2012/11/venator-class-republic-star-destroyer.html
http://culttvman.com/main/?p=2809
http://culttvman.com/main/?p=2973
http://www.revell.de/manual/04860.PDF
http://s362974870.onlinehome.us/forums/air/index.php?showtopic=219632
http://www.modelermagic.com/?p=29975

New Workbench

For my birthday this year I got a new desk to serve as a workbench.  Previously, I had either been using my painting desk, or moving things around from closet to kitchen table and back.  Not ideal, and it really has held a few projects back. 

When we were able to allocate more room in our house to hobbies, the wife and I discussed how to lay it out, and having a real workbench with a roll top desk to cover up the mess was discussed.  Thanks to her instigation, and hard work searching craigslist, my parents bought a beat up used desk for my birthday.

 A number of coats of wood cleaners, sealers, and wax, some reassembly of drawers, major unpacking, and we have this:

Note the cool art my wife got for me.

Quite nice, and I find that just having it open starts to give me ideas on converting figures, and now I am itching to build up some kits too.  It is not completely organized, and obviously the drawer pulls need to be fixed, but it is coming along nicely.

Here is what I currently have on the workbench:

And yes, I do actually have the baneblade I have been yammering on about for the last... nearly 3 years. Needs some final finishing touches, and then it is off to primer.

Inquisitors ho!

 

After re-reading the Eisenhorn and Ravnor omnibus volumes (both by Dan Abnett), I am raring to go on converting some inquisitorial skirmish action. (and eagerly awaiting the new trilogy)

For those of you not in the know, Inquisitors in the 40k universe are something like their historical namesake, with a bit of detective, Batman (vigilante with gadgets), Punisher (vigilante who kills people), and Jedi (roving trouble shooter) mixed in for flavor.  They operate outside of the regular Imperial governing structure, and have ultimate authority, up to the level of ordering planets to be destroyed (subject to paperwork of course). Then they have retinues of helpers and minions, such as astropaths, navigators, acolytes, interrogators, servo-skulls, weapons servitors, death cultists, bound psykers, and daemonhosts.  On top of that they have access to the other more military branches of the Imperium, and can bring in anything from a single space marine up to a full army for a fight (including the aforementioned planet killing when needed).

Making things even more exciting, Inquisitors are by no means a monolithic group, with a spectrum of opinion on using the enemy's own weapons against them (Radical to Conservative) and a number of mutually conflicting philosophies on what the purpose of being an inquisitor is all about.  Philosophy aside, structurally, there are there are three main branches, or Ordos, of the Inquisition, concentrating on the three main threats to mankind.  (Xenos, Daemons, and Witches) Further, the size of the Imperium is such that the Inquisition is subdivided by sector and even sub-sector in wealthier/more populated regions. The end result is that far from being a uniform group, Inquisitors can be sub-divided until each stands alone with only their personal allies.

When you have independent investigator/destroyers with unlimited power and their own private military, and conflicting ideas on how to get things done (and even what should be done), you have plenty of potential for armed conflict.  Some of the other Imperial groups could also be in competition with the Inquisition, such as Rogue Traders, the Adeptus Mechanicium, the Ecclesiarchy and more to add further flavor (and conflict).

So Inquisitorial skirmish.  Games-Workshop themselves started this off with the game Inquisitor, which used 54mm figures in a sort of quasi-role play/hyper-detailed skirmish system.  Neither fish nor fowl, and using comparatively expensive figures that needed their own terrain, the game never really took off.  I happened to get the rules and a few boxes of miniatures from one of the Troll Boss Bob sales (I so miss those), and got the bug for large figures.  I ended up with about 30 or so figures in various states of conversion... none painted.  At the time $15-$20 a figure seemed expensive, working in metal difficult, and my interest fizzled out a bit. [which does not preclude me from hauling around a file box full of the figures of course]

Enter Inquisimunda/Inq28 and similar skirmish games using the concepts, and some of the rules from Inquisitor, in a more approachable scale, and using the massive expansion of plastic figures to make the modeling side easier as well.  Suddenly collecting a few little warbands is both achievable, and attractive, and there has been a flurry of interest about this on the various forums and blogs.

On top of that, Fantasy Flight games has come out with a number of role playing games set in the Warhammer 40k universe, which help to flesh out what equipment is available, what sort of missions could be undertaken and so on.  Dark Heresy addresses inquisitors specifically, and all of the source books and other rule books would be useful.

Figure wise, aside from the massive opportunities created by Games Workshop's own figures and the conversion of the same, the Reaper Chronoscope range is overflowing with figures that could be useful with a few GW bitz, and the Dark Heaven line could come in useful as well (wizards and such make for good psykers).

So being a visual person, I have started putting together a pinterest board of inspirational pictures for this project, and eagerly went 81 pages deep on the DakkaDakka Painting and Modeling Blog board, looking for ideas to, er, borrow.  Then, in the midst of organizing my new work table, I sorted out the horde of figures I have acquired that could be suited for this purpose.  I have held on to some figures for over 16 years, and now they will finally have a clear use.

I am very excited about this, and there will certainly be more posts to come!

Home Again

Just got back this weekend from our family trip to Bavaria and Austria, and it was great.  Seeing real castle and city wall fortifications was inspiring, the Austrian Army (and Navy) museum was amazing (Rothenburg and Salzburg), I also read the Eisenhorn omnibus while on the plane (and started the Ravenor one), and I got the new White Dwarf magazine.  So fired up on a number of subjects, which I hope to share with you soon. 

Unfortunately, I also traveled for over 26 hours to get home, and am currently a bit burnt out... so it will have to wait a bit.

Ebay win(s)

After a year or more, and at least 20 bids, I finally won a high elf griffon from the Isle of Blood Warhammer Fantasy Battle starter.  I guess the market finally became saturated enough that my low ball bids had some success (fortunately for only one griffon and not all of the ones I was bidding on!).  As is my custom with ebay, I then checked out what other items the seller had for sale... and ended up with a Skaven regiment and some bits.

You can not tell from my crummy camera phone picture, but the sculpting is amazing, and the skaven in particular are super sharp, and have no duplicates in 20 figures, something that would be inconceivable when I started in this wacky hobby over 15 years ago, when plastic meant "monopose" 99% of the time.

Now I just have to decide if I want to change the griffon's rider to something for fitting for the Empire, like a wizard lord, or if I like the model enough to leave it as a high elf, a testimony to an army that I will never start.  The skaven can be used in D&D games or WHFRP, or with some conversion in Mordheim, although I like the figures enough that I seriously considered getting a few more of these regiments and starting an army... but just for a few minutes.  Skaven armies are massive, and I do not need a fifth unbuilt/unpainted Warhammer army. (do I?)

 

Next Project - Ork Jet

When I finally get done with the Baneblade and some other projects I have on on the go (some of the 101 projects, not all of them by any means!), I will need/want another large kit to work on.  There is something satisfying about building and modding a larger kit vs. the relatively tiny customizations you can make with figures.

Thankfully, GW saw my need, and will be releasing this lovely bit of kit next month:

That's right, an Ork fighter.



The kit builds one of three options (dive bomber, level bomber, and gun bird), and seems to have a bunch of tail, cockpit, and underwing stores options.  Rumored retail price is $45, which is not too bad in my opinion for a beefy game piece like this.  I like it because it looks "real" in comparison to 90% of the stuff produced by GW these days.  (it even avoided having square edged wings!)

Planned alternations?  Reaction jet nose piece, pair of auto cannons as wing stores, and removal of the "teef" on the main jet intake cowl.  Should be a blast, and pretty quick to build in comparison to the 2+ years I have been working on and off on the Baneblade.

And I wonder if it would be possible to remake this as a locally produced Imperial PDF Fighter....