Thursday 29 January 2015

..and it was!

So, both of the henchmen and the villain had sucky Wisdom based checks that I auto - failed each time.. AND they always happened to be immune to the spells I had in my hand when I encountered them.

Fortunately a stout club is a sound backup plan.

Discard a card to bump Strength up to a d10, bury Blessing of Lamashtu for two more d10s,  Mokmurian's Club for another d10+2, discarding an extra card for another d10 from the club.. and then 2d4 courtesy of a friendly Chevalier. I might have only rolled 26 on 5d10 + 2d4 + 2 but that was still enough to knock that rival bard out of the park. Those are my Iron Cages of Lust, bitch! :D

Pathfinder Time!

I was hoping to work on my Undead Legionnaires tonight or some of the recent TTCombat arrivals but it's far too cold to go out to the dungeon and do hobby stuff. Instead.. it's Pathfinder time! Sins of the Saviors, The Halls of Seduction. It's Outsider Tiefling Bard versus Outsider Demon Bard. Just as long as no Wisdom checks are required, this is going to be awesome.

Tuesday 27 January 2015

Trandoshan.. complete(ish)

So, I finished up the Trandoshan tonight (varnish isn't quite dry yet hence the shininess). I might take some more pictures tomorrow since my camera wouldn't turn on, I forgot to cover the lights and I had to do the image editing using Adobe's online version of Photoshop from my laptop instead of the actual version on my desktop PC.. but, I don't think I'll do any more painting on this guy. Redfang is complete. Just four more minis from project 4 to go...

Sunday 25 January 2015

Damn, this game is tough

So I'm 0 for 5 with Shadowrun Crossfire. With a single player controlling a single character, the only mission you can play is Extraction and I've failed it five times now. As far as I can tell, the only way you can win your first couple of runs is a stroke of incredible luck - otherwise it's nigh on impossible to keep both your runner and the client alive for 6 rounds when facing 9 obstacles. Even if you somehow manage to clear an obstacle during each of your turns without getting staggered (requiring an incredible feat of luck in itself), the client is still going to take 4 obstacles worth of damage.. and that's assuming you don't get screwed by a Crossfire card in the mean time (which you will).

I love the theme, but man, compared to PACG, where you have both the time and the resources to figure out how to deal with a difficult situation (e.g. a bad hand and three location decks with Sirens sitting on top of them,) Crossfire provides a super frustrating solo experience with a single character,

I'm kind of glad that Catalyst haven't released any more content for Crossfire yet because I'm not really sure I want to continue to invest in a game that I'm supposed to fail nine times out of ten. Well, that or I'm going to have to start playing 2+ characters at once..

Monday 19 January 2015

Bleurg

Looks like my Trandoshan is going to have to remain 90% done because I'm sick and my eyes are watering too much to paint this evening. I briefly considered assembling some new Warzone stuff that arrived today but the odd combination of great detail and weird casting problems were enough to make me throw my preparation tools in to the air in disgust.

Not only is Benjamin Taylor a giant among men (seriously, I think he is taller than Bob Watts and chunkier, too. Did Warzone just move to 35 mm?) but in places he has split open along the mold lines.. and the mold lines on the Bauhaus Artillery Korp are not only severe but incredibly difficult to get to.

Eh, maybe tomorrow.

Tuesday 13 January 2015

Ooops

After a little mishap with the nozzle on my airbrush, the painting I was going to do this evening is on hold until a replacement arrives.

Seems like a good excuse for some PACG.

Sunday 11 January 2015

Project Progress

Partly fuelled by WildChevy's 60 Days of Painting challenge over at Beasts of War, I also made some progress with Projects 2, 4 and...6. What can I say. Project 6 is now "Paint my Imperial Assault" minis and it made it into the painting queue because Star Wars.

I've painted more of my Undead Legionnaires although I'm struggling with the paint scheme. I had intended to go with the traditional mega-corp colours for each Legionnaires.. but since they would have all come from the same theater on a single planet, those corporate troopers would probably be wearing fatigues suitable for the same kind of environment. So green and tan Capitol zombie is fighting alongside blue and white Bauhaus zombie.. and it just doesn't look right, even with a lot of distressing and weathering.

As for the Star Wars / Infinity conversions, I have almost finished the Trandoshan now and as soon as I have a lightsabre technique that I'm happy with, I will start on the two Jedi. White + 3 coats of clear varnish + 2 coats of clear varnish with dayglow pigment isn't working out as well as I hoped. 3 coats is nowhere near enough to create a barrier between the white and the blue, and the pigment powder is so strong that even a tiny bit seems to complete wash out the white underneath. More experimentation is required.

Finally, I've made a start on the hero models that come with Impeial Assault. So far I've only undercoated them and put down the base colours on two, but that's still further along than most of my other work! Also, Wayland shipped my Taurox just before Christmas so Project 3 is getting closer to being 'complete' - I just need to order the wheel kit from Victoria Miniatures and perhaps some arms too.

Old Town Scenics - Warehouse

When I first saw this building on eBay, I had my doubts about how big it could really be because clearly the Troll Trader have an A4-sized cutter (although if they want to sell theirs and upgrade to an A3 one.. I am so sold on mdf terrain that I am totally in the market for a machine now!). Fortunately, this building really does feel like a (small) warehouse once complete and although it comes on 7 sheets, that is simply a reflection of the size of each component rather than the complexity so you are only looking at 35 minutes or so to cut out, sand and glue everything together. Price wise, it comes in at around £16 and when you compare it with their awesome looking Pub Bar Hotel in the Old Town Scenics range, it becomes clear that the pricing is simply an indication of the number of the number of sheets in the set rather than the complexity or usefulness of the build.. which is a pretty fair way of doing things.



As suggested above, this is a nice simple build and it's only the weird crates with the two bands around them that are at all fiddly to build. There is one 'ooops' moment when attaching the side walls to the floor piece, however.. the cuts for the holes are not flipped (because the wall is facing the other way) so the tabs don't line up. It's an easy fix though, you just need to snip off the tab.


This one issue aside, it's really hard not to see the potential of this warehouse. Sure, it isn't quite tall enough to warrant walkways and support beams up in the roof but it would be right at home on a table used for the Batman miniatures game, I reckon. I just hope the Troll Trader release an expansion kit for this set. 1 x floor panel, 1 x front and back wall and 2 (slightly shorter) roof sections and you could make this thing two, three or four buildings wide. It would look ace! One tip though - sand down the backs of the doors where they slot into the floor piece and upper rail - it's a bit of a tight fit othewise and it won't be easy to slide the doors open and closed once they are painted. In fact, I would probably leave the doors and upper rail off until after painting it complete.


The miniature used for scale is the Rail Golem from Malifaux on a 50mm base (I believe). So although the building itself is not very fancy (compared to the Townhouse A or the as-yet unbuilt Tower), the footprint is great and the potential is excellent. I certainly wouldn't hesitate to use this in a modern day game, either, and I think it will probably be the first of the TTCombat buildings I will actually paint. It may not be as swish as the two warehouse offerings from Sarissa Precision (which I have seen but sadly, don't own) but for this price it's pretty damned hard to beat.

Old Town Scenics - Waylay Yukitan Blade Store

Inevitably, after watching me put together a few of these buildings, Younger Son soon wanted to have a building of his own to make. After several weeks of reassurance that it will arrive 'soon' (it took Royal Mail 22 days to deliver my next parcel from the Troll Trader!) he was very impatient, which is why there are no photos of the three sheets - he was literally tearing the pieces off the frame before I could even fetch the sandpaper and glue, let alone dig out my phone!

 

Since we were also watching a movie at the time, the build time was about 3 hours but I think for most people, you are looking at 25 minutes or so. A few tips from this build:
1) Consider gluing some additional detail to the roof - or - sanding the four tabs that attach it to the left and right walls for a looser fit. It's hard to get any purchase on it when you want to lift the roof off to get inside and it's a tight fit, too.. so much so that even if you hook your finger inside the roof hatch, you will still have some trouble getting the roof off unless you pick the whole building up. 
2) We totally built the shelves the wrong way. That doesn't really matter, of course, but to build them the way Troll Trader have done, ensure that the two small shelves have the 3 hole shelf at the top, and the slot shelf on the bottom. Obviously they are designed to accept the two different types of swords but I didn't figure that out until we had finished.
3) Be careful when punching / cutting out the front of the floor tile - unless you don't mind having a gap, there is a very small piece of mdf that you will want to keep that will fit between the base of the left hand pillar and the left side of the door frame. You can see this pretty well in the first picture.

All in all, a fun little building although I think I've been spoiled by the two floor structures I've been assembling recently because it seems pretty small, especially with that flat roof. Still, you need somewhere to snipe from, or to hide from Graboids, right?

December hobbying.. in January. Old Town Scenics - Townhouse B

There wasn't an awful lot of hobby time over the Christmas period and the OhGodOhGodOhGodIHaveSoManyEmails week upon my return to work, but there was at least some time to put together more of the excellent Troll Trader TTCombat buildings, starting with the smaller of the two townhouses, Townhouse B.

  

As with their previous house sets, there isn't much need for a step by step assembly and this time around, the stairs are actually long enough to reach the ground floor (7 steps instead of 6 with Townhouse A). Yay! Unfortunately, the stairs still 'slot on' to the upper floor. Hopefully with later sets (or even when their stock of the current sets run dry) the people at Troll Trader will fix some of the 'bugs' including the arrangement of the stairs.



Sorry about the varying photo quality and lighting - I don't really have a booth set up so it's usually just a case of snapping the pictures with my smartphone wherever I am at the time.

As with the other houses I have made so far, I would recommend gluing the ridge to only one half of the roof - this will make it easier to lift off the roof (albeit in two pieces) for gaming. Also, I have continued to glue the chairs together the wrong way (aka my way) as I prefer the taller, narrower look to the way they are in the official photos. So another fun 40 minute build and for the price, a great addition to the tabletop.