Saturday, September 29, 2012

Undead additions

Few more additions to add to the undead monster mash list I'll be running against Joel on the weekend (http://thebrushofdoom.blogspot.co.nz/). Monster mash because my rare section is 2 varghulfs and a terrorgheist, and my mounted blender vampire lord is basically a monster himself. Going to try some ghouls in core which I haven't done since before new dex came out, skeletons not giving me much love and wanted to diversify some threats so it's not all about my knight block. So the ghouls will have a red fury, 3+, biting blade, luckstone, dispel scroll caddy vamp to run around with and do some damage.

The photos are a bit dark because once again it is overcast in Wellington and using my phone for photos.


First up is my vampire hero on foot

Some more dire wolves, bringing me up to 20 done


First Varghulf, Victor


Second Varghulf, Vincent 


Some WIP, ghouls and zombies in the background.



Sunday, September 23, 2012

Star Wars RPG - Part 1 - its a cantina scene



Last Saturday after a very full day of wargaming I ran a fun game using the Star Wars Saga edition rpg system. As I was going to have a few more players than normal(ideal party size is usually 3-5 players and a game master) I had the guys email me through what they'd like to play so they would be ready before hand.

With Leon's assistance we had pretty much all the characters good to go before we played and with talking to the players throughout the day could nail down their concepts a lot better so the character could actually be functional- looking at you Joel ;)

The cast of player characters were

Cody - human male, angry Jedi close comabatant
Stu - human male Jedi specializing in force powers
Aaron - Jawa with a Flamethrower and a Jetpack
Leon - human male soldier in heavy armour with a massive gun
Mark - human male, trained in Imperial service and hunting rogue force users
Ryan - human male charismatic smuggler - Mal from Firefly/Serenity
Conan - human male, butt ugly dual wielding merc
Joel - female Wookie, unarmed fighting specialist - initial confusion of Joel wanting to be a 'priest type' clarified into him wanting to be a monk type which then made sense

So after a gaming feast of fish n chips we filled my gaming room, distributed the D20s and got started. I gave the players time over dinner to decide whether they knew each other and thankfully the 8 of them split into 3 groups. Cody and Stu being the rogue Jedi. Joel, Ryan and Conan forming an independant trio of freebooters. Mark, Leon and Aaron making a trio of pro Imperial bounty hunters. Now I will refer to the players and characters as one because I didn't actually bother to learn their character names during the game anyway.

The planet of Seeriona sits on the Outer Rim near the end of the Corellian Run. A world whose major continents are covered in jagged mountains and alpine forests. During the Clone Wars Seperatist forces took control of Seeriona whose independant city states failed in uniting to oppose them. The Seperatists landed their driod task forces and began extensive mining operations, plundering the mineral content for their war machines. With the end of the Clone Wars and subsequent rise of the Empire, Seeriona has again become independant and is now in the process of ecological and financial recovery. This has lead to a variety of enteprising businesses establishing themselves in the cities and industrial complexes left behind after the war. With this comes a variety of individuals arriving for fortune, work and whatever they can get their hands on.

In a downtown bar/cantina(yes someone did have the cantina theme on their phone, sigh) not far from Aramur City's spaceport a trio of groups busy themselves with their own business as the day grows late. A weathered Bothan with grey streaking his golden fur tends the bar doing his best to avoid small talk with his current patrons. A pair of human men in hooded jackets sit at the bars end doing their best to avoid eye contact with anyone else. A heavily armoured man sits cautiously upon his groaning seat while his table companions of a chattering Jawa and a clean cut man with military bearing converse. In the bars centre with an array of empty vessels upon their table is a pair of human men and a Wookie. The first, a square jawed handsome fellow plonks a tray of fresh drinks down. The second a scarred, hardened looking individual refills his while the Wookie wearing a yellow... polka... dot... bikini over her shining fur helps herself to more.

From the bars small lobby where a protocol droid watched over the enforced weapons lockers came cries of distress from the droid. With a crash the tarnished droids body clattered down the steps into the bar and stopped upon colliding with the bounty hunters table. A pair a men staggered down the steps, one in a very worn brown jacket and the other in a blue security uniform. Both seemed very inebriated by their manner and incoherent moaning. They stumbled into the bounty hunters table drawing am aggresive glare from Mark and Leon while the Jawa - Aaron, his golden eyes gleaming at oppurtunity slid off his stool to 'assist' the fallen droid(frakkin Jawas).

Admist jeers at the drunkards from the players, Ryan took his beer and threw it into the jacketed mans face and scooted to the far side of the table behind the swimsuit wearing Wookie. At this insult the man let out a shriek and charged at Ryan with grasping hands outstretched. Conan sprung from his seat and grabbed the assailant doing his best to restrain him while other players made their way from their seats towards the weapon lockers for fear of escalation. Joel's wookie swung at the grappled man and with a horrific crack he slumped in Conan's grip his head resting at an unnatural position. While this occured the security guard had sighted the Jawa under the table and made a grab at him, in swift retaliation Aaron drew his hold out blaster he had successfully concealed in his tattered robes and planted a shot dead in the guards chest. With a thump the man fell to the floor with a plume of smoke rising from the wound.

As the two antagonists were now apparently lifeless it was startling to see both bodies start to convulse and develop a feverish sheen. Ryan quick to take advantage as Aaron continued 'helping' the droid, knelt over the security guard and started 'looting' the injured man. As he drew a security card and a cred chip from the pocket, the guard grabbed the offending limb in a vice like grip and bit down hard into Ryan's forearm resulting in a scream of pain. Still in a grappled state by Conan the other man snapped his head about and sunk his now blackening teeth into Conan's shoulder while ineffectively scratching at his armourd chest.

Aarons Jawa retreated from the guard firing shots from his pistol as he scurried under tables for protection. Ryan threw himslef out of reach as Leon, who had now retrieved his heavy rifle opened fire at the guard raking blaster shots into him. Conan maintained his grip while Joel unsheathed his claws and ripped into the deranged man.

Quickly the two were put down... again and the Bothan bartender started hooting and hollering with a variety of colourful language for everybody to get out of his bar.
Aaron grabbed a foot of the now inoperative protocol droid and taking advantage of the confusion dragged it out into the street making for the spaceport while Leon and Mark followed past Cody and Stu who had managed to observe the fight and keep their abilities and lightsabers hidden. Ryan whose wound was unnaturally rapidly worsening found that the guard's card identified him as an employee of Cerulean Sciences, but along with Conan was in need of immediate medical attention so also headed for the spaceport A&E with Wookie escort.

As the three groups all headed for the port sounds of conflict rang through the streets and plumes of dark smoke rose from the industrial sector.

in part 2 - spaceport - getting the characters together

Monday, September 17, 2012

A Gathering of Gamers - Wrythcon

The weekend just past had me host 9 other gamers for a day of mayhem on the tables. This was dubbed Burcon...(thanks Mark), Nerdstock(Ryan) or Wrythcon as I tryed to encourage hopelessly.

After a frenzied finale to the big spring clean I had started mid week in the gaming room on Friday night, Leon W(Napier), Ali and I watched Conan the Barbarian(the new one) on bluray while I put together some more of the lovely models from Dark Vengeance - Whatever your opinion of the movie I thought it was ok as simple entertainment and Jason Momoa(Ronon Dex and Khal Drogo) gave me plenty of cheesy moves to pull while I play a Barbarian on Monday nights new fun Pathfinder game(time for a wee break from GMing).

Following this very late night I got up early and started setting up the tables. As Levin was suffering from the tempermental weather like most of the country I set up 4 tables in the garage and kitted out the gaming room one with terrain. Visitors from Wellington and Levin soon arrived and after introductions and some hugs where needed(thats for you Stu) the gaming started properly.

I played Joel's Orks in a 1500 point game of 40k with the Crusade scenario from the rulebook. I used an Eldar list with modifications from Call to Arms, dropping the second Wraithlord for a trio of Scatter Laser Warwalkers and the Avatar for a second Farseer to try out the new Divination powers alongside Eldrad's array of Codex powers. We got stuck in on a table depicting an Imperial base with Joel's green horde stacking mainly on my left. Joel will most likely post a very good battle rep from the Ork perspective with the many photos he took over the day on his blog so I wont go into detail. Suffice to say every round I cast a reroll to hit, 4+ invuln save and Fortune on the Warwalkers and blasted away, Fortune on the Wraithwall(yay dual power Eldrad) lobbed webs into his masses with the Nightspinner and killed anything that advanced close to my lines with the Wraithguards Wraithcannons. I won holding my objectives and having racked up Slay the Warlord and First Blood. In my opinion Joel was not aggressive enough with his large Boyz mobs but we talked about that after the game and I expect to see some new play styles from him soon. Also Joel killed only 2 models of mine each game turn bar one where he racked up the Pathfinders and a Jetbike squad, not really a good tally me thinks.

While we played Leon W and Conan(not the barbarian) had a pretty one sided game of 40k with Leon who has not played 40k in 10 or so years using Cody's Grey Knight army against Conan's Blood Angel hybrid list. Between Leon's amazing dice rolling - powers of Entropy apparently, and Conan's lack of dice skillz the Grey Knights pretty much tabled the Angels only losing a strike squad in return. They both seemed to be thoroughly enjoying themselves though with the dice results being blamed for everything including the GFC and Middle East situation Im sure.

Ryan with his bike heavy Marine army went against Stu's Necrons including his newly arrived trio of flyers. I'm sure Ryan will comment but seems he got his power armoured arse whooped by the dirty Tesla toting 'crons o doom only destroying a command barge for the cost of his whole army!

Leon C played Mark in a 2400 game of Fantasy. Leon brought his Lizards to play with a variety of units while Mark borrowed Joel's Empire army after like Leon W having not played in many years. With checks to the table it seemed one sided pretty quickly with Mark's Empire keeping Leon's Lizards in one corner of the table. Final result was a convincing win to Mark and Leon ready to get his Daemons back on the table again.

After a visit to the local K Fried which according to the visiting players has superior chicken to their own offering(who knew!?) we got to a team game of 40k. A simple split of armies had Leon W, Ryan and Conan being Team Imperial with Grey Knights, Space Marines and Blood Angels, Cody arrived after work and spent the game offering advice and cruel jeering for the Imperial team. Opposing these pillars of humanity were Joel, Stu and myself with Orks, Necrons and Eldar - what unholy alliance was this! Needless to say we ignored all allied rules from the rulebook and simply played that psychic powers and other army abilities could only be used on the players own army. Merging a couple tables we set up 5 objectives and a central relic which we would roll on the archeotech chart for a laugh to see what it did.

Dirty Team Xenos =D got first turn and set about causing as much trouble as we could. There was a lot going on the table so from my Eldar perspective I was happy over the game to kill both Vindicators with my Wraithlords Brightlance(finally did what it says on the box!), taking and holding the Relic(worth 2 extra VP) with Eldrads Wraithguard squad eliminating all the GK terminators heading in there direction, causing troubles for the Imperials with the good old Nightspinners web and the shuriken cannon from a jetbike squads stripping the last Hull point from Conan's hovering Stormraven!. Stu's Necron flyers went hard on a flank deaing fairly well with all who opposed him. Joel's boyz surged across the board harrasing the marines on their own objectives adn the funniest thing I thought was Joel's Lootas gunning down Conan's DC Dread before it got a chance to assault them. I wont deal with the Imperial opinion of these events leaving it to Ryan to spread his propaganda against the Xenos forces but after a long 4 turns we called it with little Imperial forces left on the table and many VP's in Xenos control - team Xenos wins.

After a tidy up of the garage and a dinner break we were set for the Star Wars rpg in the gaming room, this would be some players first ever rpg and as I will post soon it helps for everyone to work together right?

Friday, September 14, 2012

Weekend Gaming

This weekend I am hosting quite a bit of gaming.

What was going to be a 3-4 people has escalated into 8-10 players from Wellington to the Hawkes Bay descending on my place for some Warhammer Fantasy, 40K and Star Wars rpg.

Some players want to trial Fantasy lists for upcoming events - Skitterleap and the NZTC. Learn 6th ed 40K - for the Fantasy players they have the round bases. For a couple its an excuse for a good catch up.

I plan on having a game or two with my Vampire Count lists including the dual Terrorgheists. Break out the Space Marines for a change, probably using some of the Dark Vengeance miniatures and run a Star Wars role playing game Saturday night.

Now in regards to the SWRPG I am really looking forward to it. I have asked the participating players to send me a brief character idea and I will have their stats and sheets ready to go, so we have the following line up.

Charismatic human scoundrel like Mal from Firefly.

Mercenary bristling with guns.

Imperial trained human who is Force Sensitive but hates Jedi and other Force traditions and now hunts them.

Very angry young Jedi on the run from the Imperial purge.

Butt ugly assassin dual wielding pistols and a sword.

Wookie female 'priest' with the healing touch who fights with bare hands/claws and a bowcaster.

I still have to find out what a couple other players want to be so with the current lineup it should be full of interplayer conflict - good times! I will be throwing a serious spanner into their interactions so it should be an entertaining game if nothing else.

Saturday, September 8, 2012

Infinity & Twin Gheists - Current WIP

Been painting a bit sporadically since being back from holiday. Multiple hobby projects turning over in my head as usual and the arrival of my Limited Edition Dark Vengeance box only added to this.

However I had already decided that I would get the Yu Jing starter I bought for Infinity painted up first before anything else. (apologies for the photos but they were phone pics as the Camera had a post(thankfully)holiday fit and will be off for repairs asap)


I painted these in brighter colours than I usually work with, wanting to reflect the more anime feel of the models. The 'yellow' is Tausept Ochre with Iyanden Darksun on top. Fenris Blue, black wash then succesive lighter layers on the armour. The green is the new Sybarite green which is pretty cool. Green wash then layered up and highlighted. I was going to do a bit more on them but they are fine for play once we give the game a go. I will give them a suitable urban base scheme when I see something I like.

The next thing to work on is the pair of Terrorgheists I picked up in the States. The one leaning down was made following the Terrorgheist build exactly while the one rearing up was using the Zombie Dragon leg/wing build but the Gheist head/neck.



There are a lot of knooks and crannys on these beasties so painting is going to be all sorts of fun. Thet're only blutacked to the bases so at least that makes things easier. They'll be seeing action come Skitterleap time, teaming up with a couple banshees. Though a Mr Tom Dunn will tell you it wont be enough screaming and a third Gheist with Skabscrath bearing Ghoul King is what I should be doing ;)

I am resisting painting Space Marines until after these two are done but after putting together the Dark Angel Captain and Librarian from Dark Vengeance its going to be hard.

40K FAQ update

So the new FAQ's are out and they are pretty damn good, get them here

Nice to see GW making these clarifications in a pretty quick manner, definitley addresses some things that have been discussed on variour forums and gaming rooms about the globe.

Things I noted after skimming through them.

Units with Infiltrate and Scout can deploy by Infilitrating can also make a Scout move. Got some potential depending on the units weapon ranges and terrain they may want to get into.

Look Out Sir is now taken on the closest model - no more within 6" shenanigans

Wolf Guard, Paladins and Nobs in a unit are not characters - stops some of the Look Out Sir cheese

Blood Angel weapon clarifications, Dante I'm sorry yes your Axe is an Axe. Astorath, yeah your Axe is an Axe too, you still get S6 though. Sanguinary Guard, watch out what Glaives you pick from the armoury ok. Tycho?! yeah your still awesome bro.

Dark Eldar wipe those tears aside, Incubi Klaives are AP2 off you go there are some Terminators over there. Archons, those Huskblades look quite good now dont they?

Dark Eldar you've been living in Commoragh too long. GW says you don't count as Eldar any more so no Fortune and Guide for you anymore. Better release those Enslaved Farseers. Harlequins better kick those Shadow Field Archons out of your troupes.

There is a lot in the GW Magenta but those are the things that stood out to me.

Thursday, September 6, 2012

Whispers from the Crypt

Bought some mantic wraiths awhile back during a Maelstrom games sale. Figured it was about time I made my own spirit hosts for warhammer fantasy, so being inspired by Coldbane and his start on his fantasy army I decided to try and get back into some regular work on hobby. Especially with a tournament coming up earlier next month, no more night before marathons to get 3 colour minimum!

I went with mantic wraiths because you get 10 individual models in a box for just over NZ$25 (http://www.maelstromgames.co.uk/index.php?act=pro&pre=mtc_kow_und_inf_402_000) compared to the old old GW sculpts that currently retail for NZ$36 a base (http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?prodId=prod1460041a) in finecast, which I still haven't had the pleasure/misfortune to experience. I have a fair few mantic models now and I really like them.

I originally was going to put 2-3 individual models on a base and make 3-4 bases but I liked the look off all four together, was easier to construct, and they would make great wound counters with some magnetic love. The wraiths come with standard 20mm square bases, which when all lovingly green stuffed and glued together makes a nice 40mm square base.


Then I drilled some holes with a hand drill and fixed some magnets in.




Next I wanted to make some ethereal type basing. This was my first attempt which elicited a "Oh you made grass bases!" from my partner. It is exaclty what it looks like, I smeared green stuff all over the base and went to town with a craft knife. I could have probably taken a bit more time and made it rise higher in some places than others to a larger extent, but I'm happy with how it turned out compared to time invested.


Some adeptus battlegrey followed by a liberal blue wash and a few spots of green wash later, my ghostly dudes are ready to chase down warmachine crews and generally be annoying. There are still some bits to do like the hafts of the weapons and some highlighting, but fine to play with at the moment.






While waiting for all those washes to try on my ghostly buddies, I started working on one of my nightmares for my mounted vampires. I really wanted to make these guys stand out compared to their black knight escorts, so when with less ghostly colours but still not your average knightly steed look. The model is a gamezone mournful knight steed (http://www.maelstromgames.co.uk/index.php?act=pro&pre=gmz_gmz_vmp_cav_101_000), I have the standard bearer and another knight I use as a vampire lord (http://www.maelstromgames.co.uk/index.php?act=pro&pre=gmz_gmz_vmp_cav_111_000), I really like the minis (depsite being metal), except for one problem. The mournful knight standard bearers standard is really flimsly, I think I'm going to have to replace the entire pole it simply cannot support the weight of the banner (which is an awesome banner).





Finally the big new kid on the block, my terrorgheist/dragon. I like the zombie dragon head (and I may one day try him as one), so I build it as a zombie dragon but will use it with terrorgheist rules if he is not mounted. The rider is magnetised from his bum to the mount (you may recognise him in the above picture) and his elbow is magnetised to switch between lance and (magic) sword.




I must say that the GW zombie dragon/terrorgheist kit is perhaps my favourite model kit ever. Well sculpted, easy to put together, and I managed to make the big guy, the vampire (on either nightmare or actual dragon), and a strigoi ghoul king on a rock all from the same kit. There are still plenty of spare bits for unit fillers and terrain. I'm no GW fanboy but they got this one right.