Random Updates: BrushFu, Badger Games, and Erehwon Assembled!

Last week was a big one for hobby, not because I was able to get a lot done, but because I had a lot delivered!  First off was an order I placed a while back with BrushFu Studios on Etsy.

My perusing of Etsy started in the beginning of the year, after I got Core Space.  I was looking for cyberpunk style miniatures and Etsy has a good selection of them available.  I stumbled across BrushFu Studios and liked what they had to offer but unfortunately they were taking a break at the time.  Still, my hobby was slowing down at the time anyway so I added to my cart and just let it sit there until they were back.

When they did open back up, BrushFu was right up front with the fact that they had a lot of orders to fill and to expect orders to take three weeks to ship.  I was in no rush and I really appreciated the honest about this so I went ahead and ordered.

Fast forward about two weeks and I received a shipping notification, and then the minis themselves a couple of days sooner than the USPS predicted.  I haven't had a chance to really start working on them, but I did check them all out and even gave them a wash to I can start work on them.

From what I have seen, the prints are very clean and crisp.  There are a couple of thin strands from the printing but they will be easy enough to clean up before I get to painting them.  All told, I had ordered ten minis.  Three of those came with bases attached but they threw in eight cyber bases as well which I wasn't expecting.  All in all a good shopping experience and I've already got a bunch more minis queued up in my shopping cart for my next order from BrushFu.

About the time that package showed as shipped, I started see people posting about the Stargrave Nickstarter coming in which got me wondering if might might arriving soon.  I tried to log into the Badger Games website but couldn't remember my password and the system wouldn't let me reset it.  A couple of quick emails to them, and they had it sorted out then my package of goods was sitting on my doorstep!

I don't have pictures of these sets, but I did take a quick look at each of the sprues and man are there a ton of options!  Lots of heads, weapons, and various little gribblies, plus the Nickstarter comes with a sprue of gnolls and cultists for even more options.  Looking forward to getting these into the que at some point and fleshing out my options for Core Space and Five Parsecs From Home.

Last but not least, I even managed to do a little bit of actual hobby! Ages ago I started buying miniatures for a couple of Warlords of Erehwon armies using the now defunct Runewars figures.  I'd made a bit of headway before I was called back to the home office last year, but since then it has just been in a holding pattern.  Last night I decided that I might as well at least assemble the figures that were sitting on my table in baggies and it wound up being a pretty impressive looking horde.

Of course I still need to paint them all but at least now I have a better idea just what I have which is handy.  I had been thinking about getting some more of the crossbowmen and scouts but I'm thinking this is good enough, especially since this isn't including all the spearmen I have as well.  I also did some quick math on the points and just these figures were just shy of 1000 points (minus the wizard and priest at the front, and the standard bearer and musician which don't have stats).  Adding in the leader, champion, spearmen, and rune golems to the mix and it's gotta be around 2000 points which should be more than I'll ever need... in theory anyway.  Now I just need to paint them... along with the Nickstarter...  and the printed minis...  Oh boy...  I think I better start painting again soon!  Until next time...

Core Space: Let's Start This Campaign... Again!

This weekend my friend Deuces and I broke out Core Space after a loooong hiatus since our first game.  We decided to go ahead and give the Perseus Campaign a try but with a slight twist.  We choose one of the three captains I have (Arianna, Jace, and Weaver), then we rifled through the rest of the crew and picked who we wanted.  A little more organic feel to it but since we are basically playing a light RPG it seemed like a better process.  After that, we picked our classes, grabbed our ships, and headed off to do a little bit of burglary and corporate espionage.

Things started off well enough as we explored the Trader's Gambit on Reenoff 4.  I made contact with Butler to see if he had the data from ClawTech we were trying to retrieve, but no such luck.

Deuces even managed to have MAC make contact with Gan'eek early on who asked to join Arianna's crew, but it didn't last.  The very next turn, Gan'eek was distracted by some new shiny and reverted to his civilian state.  MAC did the only sensible thing and promptly put a bullet in Gan'eek's head.

Nope, we aren't murder hobos.  Not at all.

Then there was Kaori.  She was running around on the far side of the board, parkouring off anything she could get in contact with when she suddenly decided to take a pot shot at MAC.  Based on the chance die rolls for her, she was way too hopped up on Go Go Juice to even hold still for even a second.

At this point, the Purge started to arrive.  Just a trickle at first, but the torrent soon began.

With the crazy lady the last option for the data, Deuces got Arianna close enough to ask Kaori about the info only to have a harvester walk right behind her.

Even though she dealt with the harvester, things quickly went from bad to worse as two harvesters, an assassin, and a Live One all decided to pop in right next to Deuces characters.  Luckily, MAC had found a grenade right before this so with one well aimed lob... BOOM!  No more Live One or harvesters!

Unfortunately the assassin proved to be wee bit more trouble and Arianna out...  and then MAC was taken out... and then on my side Faye was taken out... yes, followed by Jace.  First mission and we already had a TPK!

But the good news is they can still be saved, right?  Oh, except we didn't have any money... but there's still the teleporter.  When all else fails sometimes you just gotta take that chance.  On Deuce's side, MAC was saved but lost his equipment while Arianna made it out intact!  Then it was my turn.

Yeah, Jace didn't even get a chance to teleport as the harvesters dragged him away for processing.  But there was still Faye, right?  No, not really.  Not when you have that one particular malfunction that changes your character into someone completely different.

So while yes, we had a great time with all the murder hoboing and general slaughter, but we are starting the campaign yet again.  The issue at the end was just the complete lack of any funds so the teleporters were the only option we had.  I'm thinking to try to mitigate that maybe have a small starting pool of funds to buy our one crew member and maybe get some cheap equipment from BS Mart.  Think that might be an interesting change and maybe give us a couple more options when it comes to the end game.  Until next time...

Stargrave: Nickstarter For The USA

Just a quick update this week.  I've been looking at the Stargrave Nickstarter but when I've looked at oversea postage lately, it's been too high for me to justify.  That's when I heard about Badger Games.

Based out of Wisconsin, they carry a number of lines from overseas such as Copplestone Castings, Fireforge, and Artizan Designs.  I've only skimmed through these and while it doesn't look like they carry everything, it at least gives those of us State side another option with a much more reasonable shipping cost.

What's really nice is they are also honoring the Nickstarter stretch goals, and it looks like the Nickstarter is going to hit every goal available!  In this case, I'm on the fence for Stargrave because of some of the things that I've heard, but the mini bundle deal?  Heck yeah!

You can get all three of the plastic sets (that's the Crew, Mercenaries, and Troopers sets), plus all of the stretch goals (currently eight metal minis, plus a gnoll sprue, three loot markers, and a d20... just because) for $69 plus $10 shipping.

The thing that has me most excited about this is the plastic minis.  How often do you find plastic system agnostic sci-fi minis?  And given the number of bits included as well, I think this will be a fun bunch of minis to mess around with.

Ultimately, I might wind up picking up Stargrave as well, but for now I'm really happy to have these.  With the buzz that I've been hearing around Five Parsecs from Home, I feel like that one is a definite buy once the pdf only release becomes available.  Add in these guys with my Core Space minis (or vice versa as well), and there are just so many options that I can't wait to explore.  Until next time...

Random Update: I Finally Played Banker of Catan

I have a confession.  I'm 48 years old and up until this past weekend, I'd never played Settlers of Catan.  Yes, I'm a gamer who never played the game what is considered by some to be one of the gateway games for the hobby.  Instead I went the Ticket to Ride route for introducing people to the hobby (see what I did there?), so I've never even thought of buying Settlers.  The question is, how did it measure up?  Was it worth the wait?  Did it live up to its legendary expectations?

Well, as the title for the post says, I've finally played the Banker of Catan.

Our friends (who are both experienced Catan players) introduced us to the game and it was fun.  It's great to hang out with friends, and I think I can see the allure of Settlers.  Then again, by the end of the game I had a total of two settlements and either three or four roads.  And yes, that's including the two settlements and two roads that I started with.

What went so horribly wrong that I started and ended the game with the same two victory points?  The dice.

With a background in Warmachine, I'm very aware of the bell curve inherent to something involving two d6.  My starting locations weren't prime real estate, but they weren't horrible either.  Unfortunately the die were stuck on a total of 5 for what felt like most of the game, so most of my "gameplay" consisted of handing out and taking back resources that everyone else was getting and spending.

Compared to something like Ticket to Ride where there is almost always something happening on your turn, this might sound pretty dull.  Well, it actually was kind of dull from a gameplay point of view but I think that I just happened to get stuck in the perfect storm that is bad dice luck.  This is nature of that ephemeral mistress that we call Lady Luck and I don't begrudge the game for that and I really had a great time hanging out with my friends and family, which makes it all worth while.  Hopefully we can play it again in the future, and then maybe I too can break out of the financial business and become one of the settlers as well.  Until next time...

Dungeons & Dragons 5e: The New Town Of Saltmarsh

The map making continues!  After working on the maps for last weeks 5e session, I decided to step away from using a pdf program to build my maps.  Just a few too many objects on the screen at once was killing the rendering speed!  Instead, I bought a one year subscription to Inkarnate.com and so far I'm loving it!  Here is my new map of the town of Saltmarsh!

Very happy with how the site functions and the end result.  Next is battle maps which are a little more fiddly, but I think part of that is just my OCD kicking it.  I have some other stamps I'm going to pull into Inkarnate and I think the extra options are going to make things a little smoother for now.

And at some point I will be getting back to the minis.  I've dug up a bunch of critters that will work for beasties in Zona Alfa, plus I've got the start of a crew as well.  I still need some more minis to round them out, but I think they will work out nicely once I get the order placed for them.  Until next time...