Irony, MT - Part 1

For my wife's birthday this year, I somehow hit upon the idea of giving her a set of miniatures and rules for western role play. 

Rules were easy, as I went for a hard copy of Go Fer Yer Gun, printed by Lulu. I also managed to get a PDF or the rule book when it was a free item from Drive through Games. This system is based on D&D, and should be pretty easy to pick up.

For miniatures, I went with Foundry figures, sculpted by Copplestone (OW9/2, OW11/8, and DA1/6). At $15 a pack, the Foundry figures were a pretty good deal, although the flat rate shipping was a little harsh, particularly considering that it took longer than expected for them to get to me.  I was pleased with the sculpts, but there were more mold lines that I was expecting, some of which were too difficult to remove.  I also painted a random Artisan figure, which had character, but was less technically accomplished than the Copplestones (particularly in the hands).

I painted the figures predominantly at work during my lunch hour, and had pretty good success with that.  My office gets fairly good light, so it is not too bad for painting. I did run into some technical issues, mostly having to do with the Citadel screw top paints having dried up.  My flesh wash was a solid mass, and the propellant from my DullCote had long since vanished, necessitating a trip to the hobby store to procure more.  I experimented with some new techniques whilst painting these up, including using a sponge for some of the weathering on the clothes, painting reflections on a bottle, and I used the Perry Miniatures article on Painting Dark African Skin by Steven May to inform my painting of this first fellow.

For basing, I tried out grass tufts for the first time, and was somewhat pleased with them.  It seems like the particular set of tufts I had were more irregular than clumped, but I think that the overall effect is good (and quick, which its own sort of good).

Enough words, here are the first four of the miniatures (out of 13)

  Clearly I need to work on photography, since they are much better "in the hand" than they are showing here.  Limited in this case by taking pictures at night with a cellphone.  More to come, including a map of Irony City, Montana Territory.

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.

Warhammer 40,000: Inquisition

By now most of you have probably read the rumor that Games Workshop is going to have an Inquisitor game for its now obligatory "Fall Mystery Box", instead of the long expected four team BloodBowl box.  If you have not, here is the rumor:

TastyTaste says:
Inquisition is designed for 2-4 players and each side will use custom cards and dice. Army sizes consist of about 5-10 models per side. A whole new set of models drawn from Blanche artwork will accompany. The game should be flexible as you can make and design your own Inquisitorial retinue. As for rules complexity that is anyone's guess, but the general marketing goal for Inquisition is a gateway game into the greater Warhammer 40k universe.
Beyond that GW, seems to be taking cues from Kickstarter projects like Sedition Wars and home-brewed rules like Inq28 for Inquisitor. This also might not end up as a limited edition run, but that all depends on sales, and if any support is continued will be done through digital expansions and updates.
As it is that is all I have for now, but if my sources hold true expect more information as it comes!

There are some supporting murmurs, TastyTaste is semi-reputable as a rumor monger, and of course some of the Ammobunker crew have been playing Inq28 and similar games with Blanche for a while now, and Blanchistu has featured pretty much only custom war bands... so it could be true.

I was thinking about how this game might work last night when I was supposed to be sleeping, and came up with the following wish list/guess:

£60/$100 box with ~30 figures.  Something like 4 Inquisitors, 8 retinue figures, 8 cultists, 8 guards, one main bad guy, two objective pieces.  Inquisitors would be multi-part pushfit, and one would be in power armor, one female. Retinue figures would be archetypes like The Penitent, The Arbiter, the Veteran, the Interrogator, the Daemon, the Fanatic, the Sage, the Mystic, The Harlequin, etc.  Cultists would be similar to those in the 6th edition box, but with lasguns, and with more bionics, and would have one special weapon, and one leader. Guards would be something more generic, but otherwise like the cultists, maybe with cyberhounds.  Most of the non-inquisitors would be monopose  two part pushfit, except the main bad guy, and if there is one, some sort of hulking beast.

Another sprue of terrain, which is sort of down-hive versions of the cities of death stuff, made similar to the buildings that came with the LotR boxes, i.e. thin walled, but detailed on both sides. Expect mostly ruined corners, like most terrain for 40k.

Game play as basic Necromunda/Mordheim, but with all character stats on large cards.  Stats as per current Warhammer 40k, but with movement and willpower.  Wargear and one shot weapons on wargear cards that attach to the character cards [grenades, refractor fields, Emperor's tears, etc.]. More cards for terrain effects/defenses, psyker powers, wound effects. Dice in the usual amount, and jam dice for multi-shot guns (Someone at GW clearly loves second edition lately).  Inquisitor/Retinue experience is limited to some sort of skill upgrade cards [inquisitors pick, and retinue gets them randomly].

To allow for 2-4 players, rules allow for the cultists/guards to be controlled by either a player as a side, or like sea monsters in Dreadfleet (controlled by alternating players)

Two books in the box, one of rules, one of missions and character backgrounds.  Blanche art throughout, but box cover is painted by someone else.

Features in one issue of White Dwarf, mentioned in a second.  If they ever do expansions, it would be a sprue of  one Inquisitor with two new retinue figures, and accompanying cards.

Yeah... I would buy that, and I suspect a lot of you would too.

INQ28 -WIP

My wife and the newborn were away this weekend visiting relatives, so after a couple long days wrangling a three year old, I managed to get in some hobby time, and stuck together some bitz.

Primarily I was able to get this armsman with voidarmor assembled.  He is made from a Valkyrie door gunner body, bike scout shotgun arm, chimera head, three separate bitz for his right arm, chaos warrior boarding axe, and some tanks and bitz on the back that can not be seen in this picture. The chest armor and neck ring was made from a bit of plastic tubing that I got at the hobby store.  He still needs some detailing and putty work to fill gaps, and add some strapping.  You might be able to make out in this reduced picture that I tried the micro beads as rivets technique, which I still need to practice with.

Also visible in various stages of completion: (from left to right) a death cultist with a venom hand, the xenophile, Death Watch marine, pilot, sage, headless inquisitor, and the torso for a female interrogator.

Annoyingly my super glue turned to super goo over the weekend, possibly due to a faulty lid design letting in air (or failure to reseal properly!), which slowed things down a bit. I also finished my secret painting project, which I will reveal in good time.

First Model

For Fathers' day this year, my three year old son and I built his very first model kit together. It was a model plane that came with a Target gift card, which looked like this:

Always nice to get a "free" model

The "kit" consisted of two sprues of pre-painted hard styrene plastic, which snapped together, fairly tightly.  The instructions were almost easy enough for a three year old to follow, and the parts were pretty easy to cut from the sprue with clippers (I did not use a knife for obvious reasons).  The seems to be loosely based on a Stearman biplane, and if you were so inclined, you could probably modify it to work with 28mm figures pretty easily. (remove the dog head, cut out a cockpit, and cut down the wing struts to the correct height)  Alternatively, you could get a couple of them, and use them for dogfighting...

The best part?  My son had a good time.  Now I just need to get him started on painting so I can sub-out my army production...

Divergent

Perfidious Eldar

I was supposed to be spending my mental cycles thinking about another project, when I came across these lovelies...

Eldar Pirates/Renegades using mostly High Elf bodies with some Dark Elf, Dark Eldar, and Eldar bitz for flavor.  These were done for the INQvitational 2013 by Tears of Envy.

Now I find my self looking at bitz, and planning a little warband of lithe killers in sumptuous cloaks and scaled armor...

I have been away...

And a little busy:

A late mothers' day present

Well, technically my wife was busy, and I was flailing around trying to help her.  With two in the house now, our free time has declined somewhat.

Anyway, I have not touched a miniature for weeks, and have not been keeping up with blogs either.  It seems like plenty of good things have been going on in the ol'blogosphere, but I have not caught up with it all yet.

I did manage to read almost all of the Grant Morrison JLA books, and the second Carson Napier on Venus book, and have just started the final Wheel of Time book... so plenty more to discuss once I get into the swing of things again.  It might be a while though!

Dungeon Master's Guide II

Last week I finished reading the Monster Manual II (MMII), published in the far off year of 1983, when I was too young to read this.

Most of the thoughts I had of II are the same as of the original Monster Manual, although I will say that the art is over all much better in MMII (and apparently they had more than $5 to pay for the cover art this time around). However, the selection of monsters feels pretty weak to me.  If you are not in to planar adventures, then about 60% of the content is cut, and most of what is left is strange variations of previous monsters.

I did like the Derro (even though they are basically evil dwarves), the cloaker, and the rules for animal skeletons, as all of these are things which could feature in a more low powered game.  Even better, Reaper has some great Derro figures, sculpted by Derek Schubert.  These certainly need to feature in a future campaign (avert your eyes players!)  There are also some now-classic monsters from the various adventures published prior to this book, including the Driders, which of course have become popular since then. (Reaper has some stand ins for those too).

Pirates of Venus

I just finished reading Pirates of Venus, by Edgar Rice Burroughs.  Published in 1934, it is the story of Carson Napier, a wealthy young adventurer, who builds a space ship to travel to Mars.  As it happens, he goes to Venus instead, and there encounters a race of humanity not too unlike our own, and has various adventures, while trying to reach the object of his affection.  After the Barsoom books, much of this seems familiar; however, the unusual and novel aspects of Venus are interesting, and Carson is quite a bit better than John Carter. 

Figures wise, most of the stuff used for Barsoom games could translate over to Venus, although some care would have to be taken with the weaponry, and the women wear a specific garment that may be difficult to find in the usual places. (possibly Roman or Greek women?)  The Venusian ships would be interesting to see as well, as they are nuclear powered pre-dreadnaught cruisers which can none the less be carried by boarding action.

I got the book from the library (as I do with most books), and not only was it first edition, but it still had the little cards in the back from the pre-barcode lending era.  It was pretty interesting to see how frequently (or not) this book was read over the nearly 80 years that it has been in the possession of the library.

In another interesting tidbit, a Carson of Venus movie is in the offing...  so provided that comes to fruition, and is popular, there could be some more interest in this setting.

The next book in the series is Lost on Venus, which I have on order for an inter-library loan, as the local library system does not have it. Looking forward to it, since this one ends on a cliff hanger!

Inquisitor d1000 Part 8 - Secret

Here is a d100 table of Secrets as part of the d1000 inquisitor attributes project. Go back and read that post if you want to know what this is about.

In this list I am trying to get at the secret parts of an Inquisitor, either physical, historical, or mental.   It took me longer to come up with this list, as it was harder for me to think of than equipment or weapons, both of which have historically been more exciting for me.

D100	Secret
1	Abhuman heritage (Squat, navigator, ratling, ogryn)
2	Addiction (d10 'flects, 'Lo, tabac, alcohol, Obscura, stims, vids, jelly babies, call girls/boys, daytime vids)
3	Aetherphobia
4	Agoraphobia
5	Alliance (inquisitor, Ordos, chaos, rebels etc.)
6	Ambition
7	Ancestors
8	Atheist
9	Beautiful singing voice
10	Brand, slave mark
11	Cadaver organs
12	Charcoal lung filter
13	Child
14	Claustrophobia
15	Collection (teeth, ears, hair, girls, servo skulls, rings)
16	Count down clock
17	Credit reserves
18	Crush
19	Daemon possession (minor)
20	Detachable fingertip garrote
21	Downhive interests (street meat, NASCAR)
22	Eating disorder
23	Excessive faith
24	Failure of duty
25	Financial interests
26	Gambler
27	Gender
28	Glutton
29	Growth
30	Gullibility
31	Hallucinations
32	Heinlein Enslaver Beast
33	Heretic
34	Hexogramic wards
35	Hideout
36	Hobby (throne collecting, hive fishing, avian watching etc.)
37	Honor
38	Hunger (flesh, ulsios, bacon butties, power)
39	Identity
40	Illicit connections
41	Implanted frag grenade belt
42	Implanted tracker beacon
43	Infernal pact (minor)
44	Kleptomania
45	Krovandian intestinal worm
46	Language (e.g. glossia, battle sign)
47	Longevity
48	Lucky two throne coin
49	Machine sprit possession
50	Master
51	Member, conclave
52	Member, cult
53	Member, hair club
54	Mnemonic molar markings
55	Meruvian Lung grubs
56	Mindwiped previously
57	Mutation
58	Name
59	Nemesis
60	Obsessive compulsive
61	Ocular pictor implant
62	Ordos
63	Origin
64	Pacemaker
65	Poet
66	Poison pill tooth
67	Post traumatic stress
68	Primarch fetish
69	Prisoner
70	Psyker
71	Pyromania
72	Recording device (d4 hours)
73	Rival
74	Scarring, enemy's name
75	Scrimshawed phalanges (d10)
76	Seed
77	Servant
78	Smuggling chamber in bowels
79	Stim injector
80	Storage chamber in forearm (right/left)
81	Subdermal flesh wasp nest (d8 wasps)
82	Suppressed memories
83	Surgically altered endocrinological system
84	Tattoo, bawdy
85	Tattoo, Cult
86	Tattoo, Gang related
87	Tattoo, memorial
88	tattoo, ransom bearer bond
89	tattoo, regrettable
90	Tattoo, religious
91	Tattoo, slave mark
92	Tattoo, system password
93	Trainspotter
94	Twin
95	Unsavory past
96	Vox receiver implant
97	Whisperer (daemon, psychosis, implant, vestigial twin, Saint)
98	Xeno organ replacement (known/unknown)
99	Xenophile
100	Possession, major

Let me know what you think, or if you have any more ideas.