Random Updates: Mutants And Zombies And Chainsaws... Wait... Who Took My Chainsaw?!?

I had some spare time this Friday morning so I went to the game shelf and grabbed one that's been way down on the bottom collecting dust for a while now.  It's an oldie but... well, yeah... an oldie... It's Chainsaw Warrior released in 1987 by Games Workshop!

My brother had picked this up for me literally decades ago and I vaguely remember playing it a few times.  The concept is interesting enough; there is an evil force that is going to do something horrible in New York and it's up to you to save everyone but you only have 60 minutes to do it!  And you might be able to do it with a chainsaw!  Maybe... Sure, it's literally the name of the game but that doesn't mean that we are just going to hand you a chainsaw mister.  There's a process here, paperwork to fill out, we need to check the storeroom to see if we even have it in at the moment.

The mechanics of the game are simple enough.  In the turn, you advance the clock by 30 seconds then draw a card.  Depending on what you draw, you might have to fight a zombie, a cultist, avoid a trap, or maybe even find nothing at all.  The fighting all done with 2d6 (no shock there since it's a GW product) and that all seems straightforward enough.  In fact, the game play as a whole doesn't seem too bad but there are some specific parts that left me thinking "WTF guys?!?"

Before you start the mission, you need to create your character and to do that, you need to roll some dice.  The first stat you roll is your endurance which can be anywhere from 4 to 24.  Now this has nothing to do with how much damage you can take, this only tracks radiation poisoning and zombie venom.  If you are wounded by a zombie, you gain a point of zombie venom plus it might increase just from encountering a zombie.  This could be trouble but it seems manageable, especially compared to radiation.  As soon as you draw a mutant, you take d6 points of radiation just from looking at him.  There are fewer mutants than zombies but given the widely variable range on your endurance, this seems a little aggressive.  The rest of the stats are variable as well, being either one or two d6 plus a set value.  My first thought was at least this was a little more balanced but I think that this was just from the relief of seeing a set value being incorporated into the roll.  You are supposed to be some kind of retired super soldier after all.

Once you have your attributes, then it's time to kit out but wait!  There's still another die roll!  Another d6 but with a +2 this time, and that's how many points of equipment you can get... at random.  Yeah, apparently the stockroom you are being kitting out from has been pretty badly ransacked so maybe you can get that chainsaw that the we mentioned before... but probably not.  In fact, to be kitted out with the gear that they show on the character (chainsaw, flare gun, u/v emitter, medi kit, wire cutters, knife, acid, blaster, steel gloves, anti-rad capsules, and implosion waistcoat) is actually impossible.  All of this gear would cost you 12 points of gear but you only have d6 plus 2... drawn at random.

At the end of the day, I'd played it twice and then set it back onto the shelf.  The first run, I made it half a dozen or so turns into the game when a lunatic grabbed the only weapon that I had that could win the game.  Nothing to do at that point but go get a beer!  The second run went a lot better until I ran into the Meat Machine, a bizarre cyborg creature that rips off parts of you flesh to add to itself.  I was holding my own for a couple of turns, but as soon as it started hitting me it was over.  Not because I was dead, but because even if I managed to kill the Machine, I was so badly mauled that I wouldn't be able to shoot the big bad and actually hit.

An interesting concept with some mechanics that weren't too bad.  I could probably mod it so that it would be more playable but... not today.  Back to the shelf with you for now.  Until next time...

Random Updates: Five Parsecs From WAAAAGH!!!

So short week in the field, but between last week and this I was able to get some stuff done.  First and foremost are my crew for Five Parsecs!

There will be a more "formal" introduction of them soon, but wanted to show what I'd been up to.  There is one more member that isn't present because I left him back home, so I'll grab him over the weekend.

On top of that there are a couple of more Orkz for da Waaaagh!!!

These two were my conversion for Kommandos.  In addition to the face mask, my Kommandos are all wearing backpacks just to make them a bit more distinctive.  Pretty minor changes, but they worked for me.  Oh yeah, and one of them isn't quite done but he's coming along nicely so that works for me.

And as you can see from the group shot, I'm really having fun playing with the various skin tones as well.  I first did this kind of thing with my Trollblood Frostgrave warband and love how it looks.  Just grabbing random shades of the base color and then hitting them with shades to add some depth.

And... speaking of the Trollbloods... they will be heading out into the field with me next week!  I want to try something crazy and put together a Warlords of Erehwon army for them using the Dwarf list.  Might work!  Might not but... we'll have to see.  Until next time...

Random Updates: Aaaand... Done!

I did it!  I finished my Core Space minis!  Well, my new Core Space minis... still have some of the actual minis from the box to go but I'm really excited to have the last of my custom batch ready to go.

I really wasn't sure which way I was going to go with this character, but I like how he turned out.  Of course it might be pretty close to the original color scheme for the Tau Ethereal but I'm really not sure.  The colors just kind of spoke to me and it only felt right to listen.

And he's not the only one making his way to the finish line!  I finally actually painted a Teknes union worker and a defender lineman from Wrath of Kings!

I really hemmed and hawed on this one but the color scheme finally came together.  Blue feels like the best choice for their common color, and I'm looking forward to pulling more skin tones into the other works as well.  There is some repetition in the sculpts so I'm hoping switching around some elements of their colors will break them up visually.

I also decided to pull in grey for the clothing on the lineman to break up the colors.  I also painted some of the bands with white and threw in a little Rhulic gold to spice things up.

And on top of that, I broke out some of my Ork boyz to get some paint onto them too.  Well, only one for now but ya gotta start somewhere, right?

I'm trying to use a variety of different shades of green to add some diversity to the mob and so far it's working.  Here he is with a few of his buddies who I painted earlier this year.

There is only... four or five dozen more to go?  Plus a konverted Ork trukk, some kustom killer kans, some kopters... yeah, I've got a lot of Ork stuff floating around right now.

And last but not least, I also finished painting up Walker, the leader of my independent Zona Alfa team.  Here he is pictured with one of the recruits, Jonesy.

As I previously mentioned for Walker, he is a former member of the Institute and it shows in his kit.  The armor is mil-spec armor from the Institute and so is his battle rifle.  I did mix things up a bit though with his shirt, backpack, and sidearm.  All of these bits are done in different colors from the Institute's grey to give him a subtle difference.

And there we have it!  A busy few days painting and I'm really pleased with the results.  On top of that, I also took all these pictures with a new light box that I picked up from Amazon.  I was struggling with the camera settings to get things to appear as I was seeing them but think I've nailed it down... at least for now anyway.  Looking forward to working with this particular piece of kit more in the future, including a possible review!  But more on that later.  Until next time...

Blitz Bowl: And It Turned Into A Blood Bowl Blitz... Blood Bowl Blitz...

Yes, there is a difference between Blood Bowl and Blitz Bowl but it fit the lyrics.  And as for the differences?  Well, that's what this is all about!

That said, in full disclosure I haven't played Blood Bowl since the 1st edition.  I've often thought about picking it up again, but it's always felt like one of those games that you really need to be part of league to get the most out of it.  Even with that in mind, I once again decided to take a look at it and found it just as tempting as ever.

The concept just sounds hilarious to me.  Fantasy races meeting on the field of "battle"?  Just love the concept but as I started digging more into the recent edition I quickly encountered my long time enemy; time.  The reviews that I saw said that a game of Blood Bowl typically takes two to three hours to play.  If a game is fun, then that isn't much of an issue, but finding a block of time that vast to sit down and play a game...  it's just not so easy anymore.  Life, ya know?

And that's when I stumbled across Blitz Bowl.

With an official play time of 30 to 60 minutes, that's a lot easier to fit into life as we know it and having finally been able to play a game...  yeah, I'm glad that I went for the Blitz instead of the Blood.

With only three stats for each figure plus possibly a special rules, the rules are very easy to get your head around.  And it also doesn't feel like it's just trying to be a fantasy version of football.  There are enough differences that I really enjoyed the game play because it felt like I was playing something different, if that makes sense.  The miniatures are really nice as well.  All of these are multi-piece plastic minis from Games Workshop with their own unique sculpts and they live up to their normal reputation for quality.  I mean really, you can say all you want about the company and their games, but they do still make some very nice miniatures.

Only a few turns in and the stunties are already kicking my butt!

As for the game that we played, my friend Deuces took the dwarves (since they were blue... he likes the color blue...) while I fielded the humans.  Well, "fielded" might be too strong a word but he stomped me into the ground with a sudden death win (a sudden death win happens as soon as you are beating your opponent by 10 or more points).  And even though he royally trounced me, I'm really looking forward to getting this one to the table again in the future.  It's a great mix of sports, strategy, mayhem, and wackiness that puts it solidly in my wheelhouse to have a good time, and I'm already looking at purchasing more teams to get trounced with!  More on this one in the future, but until next time...

Workbench: Breaking Out The Astro Granite!

A friend of ours had come over for game night a week ago and while looking for something to play asked "What's Blood Bowl?"

I told him it was a fantasy football game with miniatures and he said "Okay, let's play."

Now all of this would have been fine if I had played the game within the last... oh, twenty years maybe?  Unfortunately the copy that I have is the second edition of the game (long before blocking dice were even a thing) and technically it actually isn't even mine.  Even so, having someone actually ask me to play... well, there was only one thing to do; download a copy of the most recent Living Rulebook.

For those of you that might not know, Blood Bowl was first created by Games Workshop ages ago.  They have had it meander into and out of their store as they revive the game for a bit before letting it disappear again.  In this case however, Blood Bowl never did just fade away.  Even when GW wasn't supporting the game, there was a very strong community still supporting and even growing the game.

Eventually GW seemed to realize that this thing that they created all those years ago was still alive and kicking so they brought it home so to speak, releasing the latest edition in 2016 with some minor changes but largely embracing the latest version of the fan supported/created Living Rulebook.

Needless to say it was fairly easy to find and print up a copy of the latest rulebook online.  Next I decided to "tackle" the board.

The latest edition of the game bumps the base size up from the traditional 25mm base to a 32mm base.  I don't know the official reason but it does seem to allow for more dynamic poses, plus they added a hole to the base so that you can put the ball onto the ball carrier's base.  The old copy that I have won't allow for the larger bases but it is made of not-so environmentally friendly Styrofoam.  The really sturdy stuff, not like you'd find around a burger at the drive thru.

As you can see, it's not the most eye catching thing.  In fact some of the marking are almost impossible to pick out so I decided it was time to start painting.

The first step was a coat of dark grey followed by two more coats, each with a lighter shade of grey.  This made the field easier to read but since I'd already gone that far it only made sense to take it the rest of the way.

The latest edition of the game marks off the wings on the sides of the field so I marked these right onto the board and I just had to pick out the logo.  I mean seriously, it would have been wrong to just leave it grey!  I also picked out the sidelines and end zones... well, just because really.  And I was going to stop at this point but... well, I might as well paint the end zones too, right?

And there it is in all its glory!  I could have tried to do labelled team end zones but I'm not quite that crazy; blue and red will work for me.  This also matches up nicely since the plastic minis from the game are blue and red.  Of course the orcs are blue while the humans are red which really makes no sense but what can you do... except paint all of them too!

No, I haven't done that.

Not yet anyway.  It still might happen, but we'll have to see how busy I am this weekend.  Ideally, I think I'd like to push around some Antares or Mars Attacks instead but time will tell.  Oh, and I still have to make the block dice too.  Time to dig up those wooden cubes I've got lying around...

Blood Bowl and Antares: The Rats Are Taking The Field! And Hey, That's The Green I Was Looking For!

It's that time of year again and friend of mine sent me a message with two words...

Blood Bowl.

It's been years and I think six editions since I played but I still have my Skaven from all those years ago.

Behold!  It's the...  um…   well crap, they had a name once... been too long...  the Rat Bastards maybe?  The Dirty Rats?  Gonna have to think about that one....

They still look pretty good, especially since I painted them 25 plus years ago but I'm thinking about changing them up a bit.  The original colors were... something acrylic?  But I don't even know what company made them much less what shade they are.  Since I have to repaint the ref/blitzer in the front, I think that I'm going to go with a brighter shade of green.  Seems like it would fit the warpstone greenish glow more than the dark shade I'd used before.  I also want to rebase them since the current edition uses 32mm bases instead of 25mm.  Thankfully I have a number of 30mm bases floating around so these will do nicely; really don't think that anyone would argue about the 2mm difference in size.  I've also got an old rat ogre floating around in my bits box so this is a good opportunity to finally get him assembled as well.

And On The Antares Front...

On a more sci-fi note, I've been taking a good, long look at my Algoryn and I'm really not happy with their final color.  It's just too dark so I decided to see what other shades of green were in the P3 range.  It took some digging but I did manage to find a shade that would work well... except it seems to be out of stock everywhere.  After digging through three online stores plus the Privateer Press website itself to try to figure out how I could get just one bottle of this paint, I decided to inventory the P3 paints that I owed... only to find the very color I was looking for.  And the moral of the story?  Look in your own paint collection before you start digging through the internet to find one color.

Shadow War Armageddon: Send In The Clowns

Just like almost everyone my age that plays miniature games, one of the first games I played was Warhammer 40k.  Over the years its grown and changed but I've never really kept up with it, especially when they moved into the Apocalypse sized games.  I just don't have the time or money to invest in painting that many minis or playing a game that takes that long.  Smaller skirmish games like Frostgrave and Song of Blades and Heroes are much more my thing nowadays.  And then along comes Shadow War Armageddon.

 

A skirmish game set in the 40k universe?  Interesting.  And I already own minis for a few of the factions so it only makes sense to give it a try, right?  Sure... I'll keep telling myself that...

 

I have bits and pieces of a few different factions in my collection but the one that I decided to start with was the one that I fell in love with when it was released way back in White Dwarf 105... the Harlequins.  I bought the boxed set and its been laying around mostly untouched for all this time, so this was the perfect excuse to finally get some paint on these minis.



A Solitare plus a couple of troupe members

For their color scheme I even actually did a bit of planning.  Looking at my paints, I really love an old shade of purple that I've had for... well, longer than I'd like to admit.  Amazingly its one of a dozen of so of the original Citadel paints that I own that somehow are still usable.  Having this as my primary color, I decided to do something really extreme (at least for me anyway) and take a look at some color theory to see what combinations look the most striking.  Usually I just go with the contrasting color but I wanted more than one detail color on these so I went with a bright green and orange for the accents.  Really bright and gaudy which fits for them.  I'm also doing their face masks with a light blue and then picking out the accents with white to give them more of a porcelain look.  So far I'm liking with how they are turning out though I want to look for a purple shade to hit the base with to see if it gives them a little more depth.  Now to see what other minis I can scrounge up to make another kill team.  After all, it is good to have options.