Horrendous Gaming

Yesterday was officially my last day in my day job, so today I celebrated by publishing Call Security! up to Wargame Vault.  As I am a new publisher it might take a few days to clear, but it is done.  Life in early retirement will take a little getting used to, but thanks to my return to the hobby I feel like it’s going to be fine.  Certainly have plenty of projects in mind to keep me busy.  That said, here’s some progress updates: 1. Space Station build I felt like the board needed walls to define the layout properly and be clear about line of sight.  It also needs to be really flexible, so they need to be thick enough to be free-standing.  Continuing my work with recycling packing materials, I rigged up a jig for my hot wire cutter and hey presto. The old Space Hulk doors are in slots so I can pull them out when the door is open. I’m planning to leave the backs of rooms open for easier access.  Here’s a full layout for the VIP quarters. Next up will ...

  Elf, Knyghte, Pyke and Sword has been officially published and I have written a bunch of stuff to go with it to drive my Defence of Dernland campaign.  This is not just the actual mechanics for the campaign but includes formal rules for playing solo, the Peoples list for the Reptiles, the rules for chariots, and a few more spell lists. Not sure whether these will become official in a later update or just be issued as fan work on Discord, we’ll see. So the page for that has been updated a little and I’ll start logging the games there. Anyway in preparation for this I have continued working on the goblin (Orc Horde) wolf riders and also made another hill. Page link here -  https://horrendousgaming.blogspot.com/p/the-defence-of-dernland.html

  I feel like I am all over the place at the minute.  I have taken some more time off to work on some specific things and get them tested on the table but I can’t quite decide what to do first, so for the weekend I have been painting whatever was still hanging around. This starts with some more wild west figures as part of my offer to paint things for other people.  They like to do their own basing so these are just painted, varnished, and sent on their way.  I am really enjoying this for the novelty, as I had no plans to do wild west figures for myself. Then it was back to post apocalyptic stuff, hence the giant scorpion above, which is the one from the North Star Silver Bayonet range.   I also finished this terrain piece for a easily placed bit of hard cover to be fought over.  The walls are pre-printed cardboard stuck on to foam board.  It was relatively quick and easy but I do still have some plans for some scratch built stuff later. Also on the sa...

  Another batch of figures I was sent to slap some paint on.   I do enjoy this, painting stuff I would never think to purchase for myself is proving quite good fun.   I also got the 5 Klicks unit done, see that page for those and a bit of the background.  I have now started the Copplestone figures, I am very impressed with the detail, they are very nice.  May have them done by the end of next weekend, we'll see.

  The Cheyenne warriors I was sent after offering to paint things for other people, are done.   I am pretty happy with them and enjoyed doing a bit of research on the warpaint colours and symbolism.   I chose the muted colours for the clothing on purpose and like the way the full set hangs together without being ‘uniform’, a nice change of pace while still working on Riflemen (another 6 done, 6 to go).

  It has been a funny old week, after the joys of three weeks off at Christmas and then the very slow build back to normal pace at work, things suddenly got busy all round. I had finished painting both the wolves above and the skeletal steeds below last weekend so just needed to varnish and base to add a mighty 12 more figures to my log for the month. There’s also half the remaining Riflemen on the go, but the highlight on the painting front was that an idea I floated on Lead Adventure Forum, to paint other people’s figures for them, landed me a dozen Cheyenne warriors to play with.  Work in progress below.  If you are reading this and might be  interested in passing over some figures you’d like painted but can’t see yourself getting around to any time soon, here’s the idea -  https://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=147945.0 Meanwhile on the gaming front, Guard’s of Traitors Toll is coming along really well.  I’ve seen the rulebook, the cards and the...

  Above, four more Investigators (painted to try to match the cards).  Below, two hired guns and two skeletons (painted individually even though the pairs of figures are the same). The Lloigor was a bit of a challenge as the only description is that “it can take on a reptilian form”, so went with a similar colour scheme to previous ‘monsters’. Finally two Star Vampires which apparently only take form when full of their victims blood.  Again painted in different colour schemes on purpose.

  I played FKPS last weekend (see previous post) and a couple more turns of my 5LB campaign today (see Gunnar’s Diary) but I’ve also been doing some painting. Above is an Owlbear and the Incubus and Succubus miniatures from Wizkids done for someone else, while below are the remaining two figures from the Human Light Infantry box set (earlier post) I held back for 5LB heroes, followed by a new mini for Spreet in Gunnar’s gang, as the previous mini has proven to be too fragile to  actually game with, having been broken three times already! Then just because they were hanging around, I did the other three Viking Ship Crew from Gripping Beast.

Another little side job as the guys I did the Cthulhu figures for were happy with them and asked me to do the six from one of the expansion sets for them. The two new Investigators were fun, and once again I couldn’t bring myself to paint up the four badguys the same.  I think my favourite of the mutated arms is the one where it looks like the flesh tone is trying to reassert itself.

In my head there are three distinct aspects to tabletop wargaming; rules, miniatures, and terrain. I fully expect to be talking about all of this in two different ways, through Posts and Pages. Posts will be like this one, short and to the point, when I have one. While Pages will be longer reads, jammed with pictures and detailing a particular project or a campaign. When I put up a new page, I will signpost it by a post. I will try to label posts sensibly so you can home in on stuff if you are more interested in one aspect than others and as an aid to my own memory, here are what the Labels mean: Gaming will be for talking about rules or showing After Action Reports (AARs) from games, and look out for some house-rules and some playtesting (when it is stuff I am allowed to talk about) Painting will be for anything to do with miniatures, both painting and kit bashing, so expect lots of photos.  I warn you now, my style is what people often refer to as ‘Tabletop Ready’, so it looks...

These posts will bounce around a little as I catch up with the past nine months of output and add new stuff directly here, this one is current as I only finished these miniatures this weekend.   I was wondering how I could keep enjoying painting minis without constantly spending money and without filling the house with minis I would hardly ever use.   Then a few weeks ago I mentioned this to a Boardgamer at work who offered to let me paint the minis that come with the Lovecraftian game Mansions of Madness.  This was an interesting challenge as until this point everything I had done was open to my own interpretation, but these had a mythos of their own and accepted colour schemes, not to mention that the Investigator characters came with cards that show at least the upper half of the character! Here’s how I did, and the guys who play the game seem happy, so yay! First up the 8 Investigators, it was actually fun to try and match the cards and then envision what their lower ...