Hordes, I Guess...

I've been obsessing about Warmachines and Hordes to a lesser extent because it's a miniature wargame where robots and monsters and crazy steampunk wizards all throw down. I really intended to get into Warmachines slowly and eventually branch out into Hordes when I was ready to start branching out. That was not the case.

First off, let me say that I live in central Arkansas, which means it's a task to even find a local game shop, much less one that isn't just stocked with only what sells(GW all day). I finally made my way down to Little Rock with  visions of poring over all sorts of little plastic robots and picking out one or two very special pieces to try to paint and make look pretty. When I got to the store, I found out that they don't even carry Malifaux, which I was hoping to look at, and they were liquidating all their Warmachine and Hordes stuff. They did just have a tournament last week so I might get to play occasionally... Anyway, I went with a very specific amount of money to spend and I fully intended to purchase at least one plastic robot man. No dice. All they had was a Trollblood and a Circle battle box. The guy offered a 20% discount, though and so it was cheaper than miniature market after shipping and I could have it then and there. I thought Circle would probably be my faction if/when I ever got into Hordes but now I'm into Hordes, I guess.

However, I was going to run Mercenaries in Warmachine because I love a lot of the characters. So, while looking at what I could do with the Circle, I started going over Minions who would work with Kaya. So, keep in mind that this list was put together mostly because I like the characters and I think it will be fun to paint/display and maybe play once every other month.

Here's a total noob list:

System: [b]Hordes[/b]
Faction: [b]Circle Orboros[/b]
Casters: [b]1/1[/b]
Points: [b]15/15[/b]
Kaya the Wildborne [b](*6pts)[/b]
* Argus [b](4pts)[/b]
* Argus [b](4pts)[/b]
* Feral Warpwolf [b](9pts)[/b]
Lanyssa Ryssyll, Nyss Sorceress [b](2pts)[/b]
Saxon Orrik [b](2pts)[/b]


Kaya, the two Argus'(which are two headed dogs named Rex, Fido, Spot and Kujo) and the Warpwolf are all from the battle box. Lanyssa and Saxon are going to be part of a bulk order to Miniature Market and that will be a whole separate report. Based on the sizes, though, I think my crappy old mage knight stuff could serve as decent proxies for pieces I want in the meantime.

On Thursday, I'll talk about how Turning Leaves is going and maybe I'll have that order all set and on it's way to me!

I'm a Copycat- BFRPG post

Seeing as I am still working painting up the last few characters in my newest army for my solo wargaming, I decided to look around at my favorite blogs. Right away, Danjou's post over at Tabletop Diversions led me to this. If you're a linkophobe or don't trust me for some reason, that leads to the BFRPG page, which Danjou rightfully described as an "obscene amount of free gaming goodness." (emphasis mine).

This is what I love about living in the digital age (I'm pretty sure that I'm officially an old person because I used that phrase unironically).  Amazing things are happening in the RPG community and they are free for the taking. When I first really got into RPGs, it was because a new version of D&D came out and the old books were on sale. So, instead of paying $40 on one book, I was able to buy the player's guide, the monster manual, the DM's guide and a bunch of supplements for about that same price (well, less, actually because I worked at the bookstore and got a discount. God I miss that discount). Here, though, there is nearly everything you can imagine for the game and it is free. I can not over state that!

The problem with RPGs is that it's hard to pick how to jump in. What are you going to devote your time and your money to? Having so much available for free makes the question a little easier to deal with. This is a good way to step into the hobby and see what it's about if you haven't already and it's a good way to show others a basic idea of what they could be getting into if they are curious about role playing games.

I mentioned in my last post I was working on a Turning Leaves campaign, looking over Owl Hoot Trail as a possible game for solo play or, on a very off chance, getting a group formed. However, I am really thinking Basic Fantasy would be the best thing for me to run because I've never GM'ed before and it seems like a good place to start because there's a familiarity to these rules that is very comfortable for me but there's some new twists that will keep the experience interesting.

Turning Leaves campaign

Okay, I think I want to update Tuesday and Thursday with a solo rpg post on Tuesday and a wargame post on Thursday(although based on etymology, maybe Tuesday should be wargames day). I think that the idea sounds nice now but it might be a little too narrow-focus but that will be the loose skeleton for this blog. At the very least, I'm aiming for at least two updates a week.

That being said, I would like to show off what I've been working on in my spare time. However, there's not really much to show off. I'm starting up a game of Turning Leaves but I'm trying to keep it kind of generic so I can actually navigate this fantasy world. So far I have done most of the basic set-up steps. The game starts with you creating a basic map of a swath of land on the coast of an ocean. There's a big mountain and a huge forest as well as a river running through it. There are three "points of interest" initially, too. You move through seasons and years until you decide you're done playing. I found this game around the time I started watching Game of Thrones and I think the two really match up. As you play through the game, characters age, gain and lose things that they love or seek to protect and new characters and places show up, too. Initially, the year is 90 something because 90 years ago, something happened. All of these pieces are put together by you, the player, in what is basically a Lego set for writers.

Here's what I've got:

The map is formed and I will post a picture eventually.

For the cultures-

Hearts(the loosely spread group) Castots. A seafaring group(since most of their territory ended up in the watery part of the world). I'm also adding racial features of the culture but I tried to be a little bit unique here. The Castots have greenish skin but sometimes they have mutant children with gills and/or webbed hands and feet that they consider "blessed". That's as far as they are fleshed out but there's lots of room to expand and the game kind of encourages starting with a rough skeleton of what's going on and moving forward.

Diamonds(The culture that predates everyone else) Donisi. I went in a weird direction with this. The Donisi are an incredibly old race that appear as beautiful creatures to whoever view them. In essence, earthbound angels. So, to avoid causing riots, Donisi travel as covered up as possible, especially their faces. However, they are a proud bunch and their masks are usually garish and strange. I guess it's weird for a group to wear masks so that their beautiful faces don't freak people out and then make the masks really attract attention. I'm thinking they will be a caste system and the higher up the member is, the more outlandish and colorful their mask will be.

Clubs(the culture that has come a long way or individuals have come for their own reasons) The Displaced. This culture also led me to what happened 90 years ago. The displaced are people that traveled through strange portals that started appearing 90 years ago so we are in 90 AP(after portals? Might change that). Anyway, the displaced are actually a broad term for the portal people. Besides the people, I thought portals would also occasionally bring treasure and strange creatures, too. This idea gives me carte blanche to do what I want as far as what I want to show up. Initially, the portals were going to be time travelers but then I thought alternate realities would be better. I think I might need to define this a bit more because right now, it's so open-ended that it feels a little bit like cheating.

Spades(The regimented culture with large civic centers that holds the larger part of the territory) Trius. The names a little generic but they are basically people who hold three in mystic reverence as a representative of mind, body and soul and are led by a triumvirate that represent each of those aspects to the fullest. So the body leader is a big, burly fighter guy, the mind guy is a brilliant wizardy type and the soul guy is a mystical serene monk. They feel like a samurai-type of culture but I was actually thinking of medieval knights. In my notebook, they have the least lines to describe their culture but I feel like they are the most fully-formed in my mind.

That's the basic skeleton and next comes character creation, which is done by drawing cards and seeing what I end up with. I think this next step will give me a better idea of who the Displaced are as well as putting a little more meat on the bones of the other cultures. I meant to just use generic "dwarves, elves, half-orcs and humans" but this game really engenders the creative streak in a role player and encourages world-building.

I am definitely sticking with this but...I did just get a hold of the playtest documents for Owl Hoot Trail and I've got the Mythic GM emulator so I might have some solo rpg stuff going on with that, too. I want to find a group nearby or find something to recruit people with but I am just really bad with people in general and most people have weird schedules anyway so it's hard to get more than one or two people to commit. I guess we'll see what happens but I think one of my goals of this year is probably going to be to find a few people and establish a gaming group...easier said than done, though. Ah, well.

Happy gaming til next time.

Let's Discuss Paper Model Terrain!

Whenever I go to a gaming store and they have custom built terrain, I think it's the coolest thing. I want to grab it and look it over and see how miniatures move through it. I'm very polite, though, so I don't just start grabbing stuff. I never thought I could make something like the stuff I saw but I've been checking out videos online and reading articles and I think I can. Before that, though, I figured I would settle for paper models. That was my mistake, to think that building paper models is somehow less creative or time consuming.

Yes, my workspace is currently gift wrap central!

The second floor bends gently upwards.

 Hopefully, you can see problems in those pictures immediately. Overall, despite my inexperience, Lord Zsezse Forgotten Ruins still looks pretty cool. However, if you were a beginner like I was, I would not have recommended it for you. For one thing, I think whoever is the designer of these models doesn't mind how they look when you don't edge the models. Edging a model is basically going over the edges with a black marker to cover up the white paper showing through. I can understand if a person doesn't want to do this but the instructions make no mention of the technique at all, as opposed to models I've done from various other paper model manufacturer's that point this out as an option. Also, it's not specified exactly what type of glue to use so I used regular ol' elmers, which warped the paper in lots of places. Craft glue has a lot less water content than typical white glue and dries faster so you don't have to wait as long for each piece to finish. Little tips like this are something you might not know unless you had some experience already.

The biggest problem I had with this model is that the designer suggested using a butter knife to score the fold lines. I was probably doing it wrong but even if that was the case, I got so frustrated rubbing a butter knife over the areas I was supposed to fold only to have them still not fold right that in some areas I tried to just fold it freehand. That led to a lot of awkward angles when the whole thing was put together. The best technique I've found since then is just lightly running an X-acto blade across the lines where the cardstock has to be folded, it works perfectly for me.

So, I do intend to make another version of this model, especially since one of the coolest things Zsezse does is to include various textures and layers for different effects. This model is really good for nearly any genre of gaming but I can do a different texture and get something a little differen with some plant overgrowth and even a few bullet holes. Overall, I think this kind of terrain is really cool but it lends a game an almost cartoonish feel, which could be good or bad depending on which way you lean. For some grim, dark roleplaying scenario or historical wargaming, it might not work. For me, though, I use several paper models, including Lord Zsezse's recently released hills model, which actually got printed out when the printer was really low on ink so it's got this unusual faded color to it. I also use some new stuff I've been working on as I try to make my own terrain. I really don't mind blending the different pieces because the 2-D nature of the models isn't too much of a distraction in-game.

I mention I am working on new terrain pieces but one thing that paper models have over other stuff is how fast they are to build and the smaller amount of resources and space they take. It's been really fun putting together a fake mountain or forest but it is infinitely simpler to print a pattern on some cardstock than to hunt down all the right pieces for whatever terrain project I'm working on. It would be easier if I had a gaming store nearby or a bit more expendable income so I could order some stuff but that's an important factor in paper models.

Well, I'm hoping to get an actual play written up next but I might have a few other pictures to throw up in the meantime. I think I'm going to try for at least two posts a week so look forward to that!

Paint This Dude #1

A disclaimer: I have actually painted three metal miniatures before this with no real reading into what to do. I just had some metal miniatures and, after living with some family in a cramped house, I had a whole extra room of space to paint in so I bought some cheap acrylics and a brush set from a fabric store and went to town. However, I decided I wanted to paint up my Castle Ravenloft miniatures and so I wanted to practice a bit, as I mentioned in the last post. So, this is the first miniature I painted after I read a bunch of different "How to Paint Plastic Miniatures" articles, primarily this one. Since this is the first time I've done a post like this, I'm going to do a step-by-step commentary on what I'm doing and some thoughts.

"I will shoot a dragon IN THE FACE!"

This is the Mage Knight figure, a Khamsin Freelance. Most of the Mage Knight figures, especially the ones from the first run, are pretty easy to pry off their bases. I think I poked this guy's foot once with an exacto blade and then just pulled a little. Then, I used some elmer's glue to attach him to a Pepsi cap. Oh, but the most important thing that I learned that I never considered was to wash the miniatures before you start painting them! This guy has been sitting on shelves or in boxes since 2002 and gathering dust and grime. He's been handled by me or a few other people and some of those people may have had dirty or sticky hands. So, I washed him real quick with dish soap and warm water and the difference is immediately noticeable. You can pick out details a lot better because there's not all kinds of dust and what not all over him.

Life is cold and gray.

Snow camo.

The next step was to mix up a little Gesso to help the paint stick and get a solid undercoat. I misread something and gave this guy a whole coat of white after the Gesso and , worse, I didn't do a solid, even base. That kind of bit me in the butt later on. If I had just left it at the Gesso, I think the figure would have come out better.

We're not in Kansas anymore.

"Take a picture, buddy! Oh, yeah."

So, in the first picture especially, you can see how that white undercoat makes it really obvious if I missed any spots. Well, the best thing to do would be to paint everything right and make sure no white is showing. That is not what I did. I just pressed on because I figured with the next step, it would get covered up. Spoiler: it did not.

Swarthy, that's what he is.

The shading is so good it looks like I took a bad picture...

Now we are at a point where I did some washing, which is taking a dark color, diluting it with water and then painting over so that the thinner paint flows into the cracks and crevices, creating a really cool shaded effect. However, I did a few bad things. Number one, I only used a black wash all over everything instead of different washes for the different areas. That was because I didn't think I was doing the washes right and then I did this thing I tend to do a lot in life and figured I read something wrong but then instead of going back and rereading what I thought I misread, I made up some new facts and went off that. So, it was black wash all over the place. Then, I mixed blue with black to try to make a wash and it was too thick so his shirt got a whole new color on it. Then I tried to do some drybrushing, a technique to highlight some of the raised portions of the model. Unfortunately, I got a little crazy so his black gloves with silvery studs became silver gloves.

Also, in the prep stage, I should have clipped or sanded the mold lines on this figure. It's really obvious in the last picture there, the little fin rising out of his head is a left over from when he was cast. Finally, later on, Wiz Kids produced better and better models as they kept expanding the Mage Knight line but then they threw Mage Knight fans an odd curveball by making Mage Knight 2.0. I thought the gameplay was interesting and they added a lot of new ideas and tricks but that seemed to be the problem. Mage Knight was cool because it was so simple to learn and play...anyway, I digress. The point is, in the molds for Mage Knight 2.0, there was an updated Khamsin guy that looked more like a samurai with a pistol and less like a bad juggernaut cosplayer.

"I'm feelin' shiny."

There he is. That's my first painted figure. I should have bought some dull coat clear spraypaint to cover him but because I do most of my painting in a room in our apartment, I thought I could just use the stuff they use for clear-coating puzzles, Mod Pudge. However, it does make the figures really shiny and kind of rubbery looking. I like the feel of them, though, they kind of remind me of those little MUSCLE guys or the ninjas me and my brother used to get from vending machines. The base is something else I did with a metal washer and some dry cat litter that I painted brown. Also, the mushy stuff is poster tack, which turned out to be a bad idea because it stays all gooey and gross. I thought maybe when I painted it, it would hold it's shape or something but that didn't really work out. As of this writing, I've painted several more figures and  so this guy has some brothers. The bases I did for them were painted brown and drybrushed green and there's no poster tack on them so they look better. Later on, I'll post some more stuff of what I've done since this mess.

*rolls a d6* *consults chart* Ok, Introduction.

Obligatory Wargaming blog pic

When I was a little kid, I had two brothers and a sister. Well, I still do but the point is, I had people to play with that had a similar mindset. Our dad was the type of guy to gather us all in the living room, set a couple pillows on the ground, throw a blanket over it and then have us pick our favorite action figures and form our bases for an epic, hours long campaign. Likewise, because we didn't have a TV for some reason until I was about ten, we would have to do something to not be bored. So, we played a lot of board games, Charades and even round robin story telling. Because of him, I've never viewed toys and games as a realm for children only.

I've gamed on and off for most of my life. My siblings have branched out into video games and I'd be lying if I said I didn't, too. Still, there's always been a special place in my heart for miniatures. My dad used to manage a comic book shop and made a lot of connections, so he always had some kind of Battletech robot or a pile of 15mm warriors. I had a bunch of miniature Star Wars characters and playsets, countless legos and plenty of little rubber guys that had been picked up in a flea market or a thrift shop. Still, I never officially got into anything until I bought a Mage Knight starter set. I bought packs and packs, looking for the exact characters I wanted and played a few matches against my dad and my younger brother. It was another year before I ended up with room mates that were gamers like me and we played Magic, Mage Knight and Heroclix all the time.

Even after we parted ways as house mates, we kept a small group of players together and played D&D(3rd edition) or pick up games of the D&D skirmish game or the Star Wars Miniatures game. We all grew apart, though and I ended up leaving the state. After wandering back and forth a bit, I ended up at Hat's Games in Tucson, AZ and reconnected with D&D, now in it's 4th edition. What surprised me was the amazing details and paint jobs some of the players did on their miniatures. Also, I found out Mage Knight was pretty much dead. I hadn't paid very much attention to Wizkids but I remember seeing Horrorclix and Heroclix and I assumed that the brand was doing well. We'll flash forward a bit and now I'm in Arkansas and on my way here from Arizona, I stopped at my dad's house and got all my old miniatures.

So, here I am with piles and piles of Mage Knight figures as well as a copy of the Halo board game, Ravenloft and a bunch of Horrorclix that I got on the cheap from my favorite supplier. I bought some cheap acrylic paint and started painting some stuff up. So far, I've done some cheap mage knight figures as practice before tackling the board game stuff. I've got a decent amount of stuff now, so I've started doing some solo gaming, too. Here in this blog, I will post some pictures, battle reports and general thoughts on the hobby of solo wargaming and, to a lesser extent, solo rping. I'd love to get opinions, tips and constructive criticism so feel free to chime in!