At Salute 2017!

Last year I had the privilege to support Hasslefree miniatures at Salute with a sci-fi dungeon crawler game of my own design using the SH3D terrain I have incredibly slowly and painfully been building under the name "RandomSpaceQuest" - hopefully the name gives it away really, it's the Warhammer Quest card generated dungeon idea in space.

Resurrection

"I'm the monster's mother"

Secret eBay Confessions

So it turns out the one thing you can still do for your hobby with a newborn tying up one hand is spend lots of money. eBay even made a handy app for your phone - those guys are so helpful.

Instant-fix shopping therapy combined with being spurred into panic buying as much old school goodness as I can for a new son (multiple games with multiple complete forces for each, natch) is great fun but it's also just about the worst time to be spending. Time to confess my sins publicly and dump the guilt - yay!

My increasingly inaccurate top five most expensive single figure purchases (not including P&P)...

Review: KR cases

Most of us aren't fortunate to have unlimited space and unlimited money and unlimited patience from our cohabitors, and I reckon most of us will acquire far, far, more lead men than can withstand the tolerances of those limiting factors so inevitably one must either sell up (shudder) or pack up.

I've got a couple of GW cases which I've used for transport in the past but as anyone who has them knows they're quite inflexible in terms of the types of models they can store without hacking them up and in themselves are quite awkward for storage purposes as the case is quite bulky. I also considered BattleFoam who do seem to have quite an excellent range but the prices (at least in GBP) are quite expensive compared to KR who came to me as a recommendation from a friend.

vs GW case - little longer, little shorter

I wonder if I'm still on the blogroll...

Long story short:

So while I'm super-incredibly-over-the-moon about the little fella (for he is), and looking forward to showing him the delights of dungeons and space corridors maybe 10 years from now, he is totally putting my productivity in a nosedive. In the last six months I have achieved exactly this:

Which isn't even finished (obviously, I hope) so that's like 8 weeks = 1 model done.

OUCH.

An Epic Game of Epic Epicness

My first wargaming love, err <thinks>... fourth?... well somewhere in the top ten anyway has always been Epic in it's various guises, ever since my first white dwarf (152). Truly an apt name, nothing else has ever conveyed quite the gravitas or captured the ENTIRE GALAXY IN FLAMES!!! feel as Epic does.

Prototype template

Never a perfect system, every version has brought a different experience, and what I've recently wanted to experience was gigantic titans of doom. Having recently ebayed a mass of titans, I cobbled together a simple set of rules (I think I like designing games more than playing them) from all the previous iterations (including the recent GW created one floating around on the net).

I stole the Imperator's plasma allocation for example (that always struck me as an exceedingly elegant way to introduce tension into a game), simplified "to hit" and damage using the space crusade dice (which are excellent tools conveying two different kinds of information as they do), and reduced damage effects to a damage track as per a million different games.

So a couple of weeks ago, as part of a weekend of games-of-stupid-fun a friend and I tried it out!

Project Moth

I really, really, didn't want to play the personal life card (which has been ridiculous and Sept looks no better for the hobby), and I really didn't want to post filler content, but I also really didn't want to let a whole month go by without anything happening here (momentum is everything in blogging, right?) so although I haven't managed to take any photos of THE BIG PROJECT I can at least recap where everything is. Despite the lack of content here, I've actually done a fair ton of work.

SH3D

Three crossroad sections, three corridors, and two end pieces nearly complete. I continue to be let down by a bitz company (who isn't these days?) which has prevented me from finishing these up, but these have been really successful to my mind (though kind of expensive parts wise). I'm running short on some critical parts so a reload from triple helix is coming up (just as well I'm selling my old stuff on ebay).

All kinds of fun ideas popping up: an 80's style arcade machine tucked in a corner, aperture labs equipment, servitor dispenser lines, patriarch throne room, motivational posters (definitely including recalcitrantdaze's propaganda posters)... gotta have a sense of humour in your space hulk. Or you'd go crazy right?

As a motivational measure as well as to help ensure I have all the right pieces magnetised I've changed strategy to build mission maps, starting with Suicide Mission. Turns out the damn thing barely fits on my dining table. :S

Guess I should find me a games club...

Epic

I randomly spotted a copy of Adeptus Titanicus on ebay (complete with styrofoam buildings!), randomly managed to buy it for a not-insane price, then less randomly dug all my old epic stuff out of storage and starting working out armies (I really, really, miss owning army cards), and then went back to random and bought a metric crapton of old epic stuff to round out said armies. I've nobody to play any of this with, and no scenery for it, and all the epic systems have problems as well as charms but it's my favourite game the evil empire ever made - moreso than shulk even.

Oh and I saw all the incredible work at wargames workshop and that didn't help matters. I seem to recall it was similar things which got me into the whole SH3D mess :)

My sense of nostalgia for army cards and those handful of good battle reports in white dwarf is really punishing my wallet.

Dungeons of Doom

Yet another problem my sense of childhood nostalgia has created is my warhammer quest / heroquest lite project. I'm in advanced planning and acquisitions stages of creating four basic scenarios questing into the realms of skaven (imperial sewers), goblins (caves), undead (tomb crypts), and chaos (temples). Lots of scenery required eventually, and as much as possible I'm using classic 80's and early 90's models. Some of my favourite ranges like Kev Adams' goblins and Jes' early skaven, amongst the first stuff I saw in WD's in the 140-160 range (golden era imho).

To prevent this becoming too much of a wallet burner I only need a couple of dozen models for each scenario, and there are bargains to be had on ebay. Mechanics wise the plan is to use artscow again to create some warhammer quest style cards and simple heroquest dice. The emphasis on fast and fun.

Genestealer Cult

A backburner project, rekindled a bit by seeing Oink's excellent Hydras and of course their utility with shulk. I now have most of the hybrid's range collected, and a pile of delaque gangers who I think will make perfect brood brothers. I did plan on making these into a combine-style Half Life homage, especially the Arbites and even managed to acquire a suitable G-man, but I'm a bit iffy on how well they tie in now.

Ordo Xenos

aka the Tru-Scale project, everything acquired just haven't raised the interest past the above distractions.

Mid-Heresy Dark Angels

aka the WH30K project, same state as the above.

Alpha Legion

Well I just finished reading Legion, so now I have to have some.

***

So yeah... a lot of work. The thing about moths is they tend to burn their wings. We shall see.

Rogue Trader Day-ending-in-y

By the grace of Goodwin, I love these models.

Check My Corner

Another week, another corridor, and a corner too this time. I'm basically leaving these in a 90% complete state because I want to be able to come back to them with the space to add uniform elements or things I learn later on, but the shells of these are pretty fixed I think.

Everything so far...

One Percent

First of many, many, many, corridors. I actually have three others underway but this one A). is completed and B). actually came out in the photos. My next post will be about tripods and lightboxes I assure you.

Tyranids Ate My Family

Apropos to my small band of stragglers (more doomed than the Eldar) I borrowed a concept from the fantasy equivalents - slayers! And since there's no trolls in space (hmmm... idea) he's going after the ravenous gribblies of the Tyranid horde. Enter the beastslayer!

Angry? Angsty? Axey? Check, check, check.

Prototype

Long time coming this one, but please be gentle there's a lot more work here than it would seem.

Behold! The first prototype board section of my Space Hulk 3D project...

This one is a T-section, my plan being to do this project in groups of a corridor, a room, a junction, and an entry/dead-end piece to keep thing varied and my interest up as well as to have something functional as soon as possible.

Dwarves... In... Space!

As mentioned previously I managed to grab myself a bunch of Squats at a bargain price a while back. Normally the high demand puts the little fellas at kind of a stupid-high price bracket on eBay, so I've been a bit careful building and painting them so as not to waste them.

On the other hand, I find them ridiculously fun to paint. Can't explain it, just like it. So after BSGH pushed me to paint one up, I've been slowly putting the rest of them together around my plans for an almost Inq28-ish little ragtag group of Squat survivors - salvaging and raiding for relics of their shattered culture, for sheer survival, and yes for something, anything, (plot driver alert!) which might be used to wreak vengeance on the hive fleets. Truly, it takes a dwarf to do grudge-bearing properly.

Corridors... In... Space!

Inspired by Oink's articles relating to his gothic architecture project, I felt it would be worth doing some similar investigation myself...

Unlike Oink however, the vast majority of material for the interiors I'm interested in is fictional. Movies, games, lots and lots of concept art. Of course the problem here is that the thing I'm trying to build isn't actually real (yet). The closest equivalents I can think of would be the interiors of certain kinds of industrial plants, large mobile structures like warships, and military facilities.

The Enemy Without

Approximately 42 days ago...

In the damp and dripping ruins of an abandoned comms tower on Tenebrae Quintus, Jaques Bishop impassively listened to a man who was neither there, nor entirely a man.

"Are you quite finished?"

The holo-figure glared but remained silent.

"It is not a matter of betrayal. You were greedy, you delayed, and you were noticed. It is as simple as this."

"We did not delay! The trader argued over payment-"

"Come now, it took you five hours to convince the man the pebbles in his hand were worth more than the figure you planted in his mind? Tsk, tsk. I know you know that I too am gifted as you are - I am aware of everything from the moment you loaded the cryo-stores."

The glowing figure looked murderous and sullen beneath his cowl.

"If the Ordo are aware - and I assure you they are, I still have loyal servants within after all - then Van Saar and the other Istvaanite crones who support him will already be on their way, and our business is already concluded. I told you that this would be the consequence if-"

"You know our resources are vast and powerful, Inquisitor. The work will proceed regardless, the Hive will-"

"No. Your Hive fleet is on the other side of the sector, with a great many space marines in between. But you may do as you please if you think you can survive the attentions of the Ordo."

Bishop flicked the holo-comm off, the cowled figure vanished.

"Goodbye, magus."

High above, entirely unnoticed by the sentry drones and the remote-scanners, something watched in the dark.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Serendipity

Day after I decide to go for 50mm, what do I find on frothers?

New (but expenseeve) set from Microart Studios. 50mm wide. Definitely make sue of that...

Finding My Inner Horus

In one of the black library Horus Heresy books (which are generally excellent if you didn't already know btw) there's a moment where Horus is reflecting with one of his minions on why the Emperor chose him above Dorn, Guilliman, the Lion and other candidates to be Warmaster.

The one thing that Horus possesses above any of his brothers, is that he never loses. His is the ability to turn a setback into an advantage, to play any hand and win. To escape his limits.

Frustration

Doors, right. Who the hell do they think they are?

If you're building your own space hulk set then you have certain limitations and certain choices to make.

And So It Begins!

Mwahahahahahah

Now I'm really committed!

Another sector and a bunch of detailing accessories are also in the post, prototype corridor section is in the pipes. Test run with magnet coupling suggests they aren't going to be necessary but obviously will be for swappable wall sections. Kind of disappointed with the quality of the Honoured Imperium set - doesn't appear to be miscast, just a bad mold with pretty sparse sprues - but OTOH I didn't realise the shrine set comes with a different (better) set of floor tiles which is super handy since I probably need to buy at least another four of them.

(Hmmm, maybe this is getting out of control...)


Edit: Oh yeah, GO 'NUCKS GO!

Building a better Space Hulk

So the camera's acting up and I can't get any decent shots of my WIP Deathwatch, of which I've only managed to progress two marines (Brothers Torres and Kesler, soon to be wearing bearskins), my order for SH3D components is trapped in some couriers van somewhere, and real life is no less disappointing sad to say.

Prototypes - I like a snub nose bolter :)

So it goes.

Ok, so what I can talk about is Space Hulk planning (for hardcore shulkers interest only)...