Starport Scum: A Fistful of Sickness

Nordic Weasel 2016

I had a little game of Starport Scum yesterday while on the mend from being sick the last 10 days. Wouldn't recommend it...The being sick, not Starport Scum! It's the predecessor to 5 Parsecs From Home but way more sandboxy. If you want a great look under the hood, check out Docking Bay's fantastic write up on it.

First three are Laserburn and the last is a more recent Khurasan.

Chain Reaction 2015: Friday Night Space Fight

 Hello all, welcome. Been a while since I last posted but I thought I'd continue on with another Chain Reaction 2015 post.  Let's get right into the action!

 Firstly, I used Nordic Weasel's Sci-Fi Scenario Generator  to roll up a somewhat random battle. I already had in mind that I wanted to use my newly repainted Matchbox car, which was transporting valuable materials to a moon base when it broke down. So with that in mind I came up with my star and his hired grunts would try and steal the goods from the transportation vehicle. An easy scenario but I fleshed out the particulars with the scenario generator by rolling troop quality and terrain type. I already had low gravity as the unexpected circumstance, which reduced my movement to no fast moves.  Away I went!

By the way, the troop quality for the opposing side (rolled at random) was poor quality troops, which translated into rep 3 soldiers and rep 4 officers, so I had a definite advantage with my battle hardened veterans, as you will soon see! I didn't really feel like doing any commentary, just wanted to put some pics up.

The terrain is all hand made except for the ruined buildings that are from Dave Graffam.

Thanks for looking!

My rep 5 star (with pistol) and his hired personnel.

Swordplay 2015: Recovering Lost Relics AAR

The Story: For this game I rolled two Rory's Story Cubes and just made up a simple story based off the dice, here's what I rolled:

 A band of robbers intercepted a caravan transporting some royal treasure that belonged to a tribe of Northern Men and are now hiding out amongst a ruined city. Unbeknownst to them, the Barbarian Prince himself would attempt to retrieve said treasure…I know, not a very deep story but still gives me a reason to bust out some new terrain and my minis for a good romp!

Initial Setup: I wanted to play a raid encounter and I deployed the terrain to my liking and then deployed the PEFs. Two in section 1 and another in section 2. I deployed my band in section 8.

More after the page break!

Red Sand Black Moon: Sambre's first fight!

By Two Hour Wargames

If you don't know already, Red Sand Black Moon by Two Hour Wargames is a set of fantasy gladiatorial combat rules based off the more historically accurate gladiatorial combat rules Red Sand Blue Sky. But I'm pretty sure facing trolls and orcs really happened in the Colosseum so RSBM is pretty much historical...You'll just have to take my word for it! ;) Anyhow, I decided  after some fierce battles to try a campaign.

Mini terrain tutorial and a picture of my small village...

 So I was walking through the garden section at Wal-Mart when I came across one of these buggers...

Miracle-Gro GrowAbles seed pod

 Of course, being the miniature guru that I am, I thought if I flipped it over it would make a great stone marker! Maybe an objective, statue, magical stone, etc. So I picked up a couple and ever since then I've been on a terrain binge. Here's how I did it!

Step 1: Open up the pod and dig out the dirt and seeds...You don't want that stuff in there on the battlefield, I think there's animal poop in there!...Or maybe you do, that's your business!

Step 2: You can optionally add a base like I did or simply leave it as is. There's a nice lip around it if you don't want to have a base.

Step 3: Prime and paint however you like! Looking back at it now, I might repaint it but for now, it's okay.

 Total time, about 20 minutes for two of the suckers. Here's the end result...Nothing super spectacular but was a nice little terrain piece for cheap and little work.

All done! As you can see, the little design kind of makes it look of elvish perhaps...

Charge the blurry dwarf!

And finally, I've always admired the houses in my Warhammer Fantasy Battles 3rd Edition rule book and I wanted a small village of my own in a similar make. I managed to find a couple good templates, set to work cobbling some cardboard together with hot glue, texturing with wall filler, thatch roofed it with hot glue, and slapped some paint on it. Very happy with the results!

Needs some orc invaders!

 Thanks for having a look!

My first attempt at a "DIY Caulk Battle Mat"

I was recently looking into buying a battle mat. Something I could roll up as space gets more limited it seems. I also wanted something that wouldn't break the bank. With a baby on the way this fall, both of these things had to come into consideration!

 That's when I found this awesome tutorial on how to make battle mats using canvas, caulk, and paints! Seemed like a project I could tackle rather inexpensively. Here's a quick look at how mine turned out...Not too shabby for around $10 worth of materials! Not to mention, I've got plans to make a whole bunch of different ones, including some smaller ones for my 10 mm and 15 mm figures.

Randomly placed figures and terrain!

 Another key factor was the size of my playing area. I have a beloved card table that I use for almost everything, from crafting to playing games on. While the ideal size for most of my games is 3'x3', my table is only 33" x 33". With a custom mat, it was as simple as measuring and snipping out the right size. :)

Painted to match my basing style.

Incoming!

 So there you have it. Cheap, durable, able to be stored, and looks halfway decent. Thanks for reading!

Return to the Drow Priestess' lair...A Song of Blades and Heroes dungeon crawl

The four mighty heroes! Crusader, Acrobat Thief, Dwarf Warrior, and Swordmage.

 Herein lies the picture diary of our four brave protagonists as they attempt to hunt down and slay the evil Drow Priestess! I used the rules from Song of Blades and Heroes, Song of Gold and Darkness, and the custom tables from a fan-made companion called Deep Dark Dungeons, which is a great little addition to the dungeon crawl rules for SOBAH!  If you wish to take a step into the dungeon, then read on!

2 Hour Dungeon Crawl Overview and Battle Report: Yorgen's Fall

 So I've always been a fan of dungeon crawls ever since my first foray into crawling with Warhammer Quest. A great game in itself with a lot of good memories of getting stomped in the dungeons with my cousin, Will. Then came Mage Knight Dungeons, which was quite different from the former as you played head-to-head or at least that's how we played it. You could also play solo or cooperatively. In both cases, the players controlled the monsters and while acceptable, it's always fun to have no control over your opponent either when playing alone or with a buddy.

The crawl to end them all!

 Enter 2 Hour Dungeon Crawl by Two Hour Wargames (THW). A game of high adventure down in the depths of the earth plundering dungeons, slaying orcs and goblins and all manner of monsters while amassing wealth and glory or leaving an unmarked grave deep in the caverns. This is not a review of the game (which I plan to do once I have sufficient experience under my belt!) but just a quick battle report and a quick overview of the THW style of games.

The classic six heroes from Dragon Quest by Ral Partha!

 I'm a vintage collector, be it miniatures, books, video games, whatever. The sad thing is, a guy my age (33 next month!) calling stuff vintage from when he was a kid is just sad since it was only in the 80's and 90's that's not that far off is it?! Well, I suppose it is...

 The six player characters from Dragon Quest were made in both plastic and metal versions. Presented here are the metal versions. They came free with the sealed game box I got last year for only $40...Well, I guess that's a good price. It was vintage, it had cool box art, the cards had awesome old D&D art on it, I was a sucker, what can I say! I bet if my wife were an old flabby hag tatted up with old D&D art with a Ral Partha or Citadel Miniatures brand on her, I'd have gone for it! Thankfully, she's quite beautiful and not at all hag-like, nor old and flabby. The point is, I love vintage stuff! Anyway, I'm rambling, here's the pics!

Love these three!

The dwarf is definitely my least favorite...

  I really like these guys. The dwarf is a bit lacking but he's still got some charm. Some people don't like the thief because he's a little small but what he lacks in height he makes up in pure unadulterated codpiece! The other guys are pretty standard fantasy fair but I like that. The elf, however, definitely reminds me of old Citadel GW stuff.

 Until next time bloggers, have a great weekend!

Sunday Dungeon Crawl Madness!!!! (Battle report)

 This Sunday I was home alone, so decided to do a little solo dungeon crawling. The rules I used were Song of Blades and Heroes and its expansions as well as the fan-made expansion Deep Dark Dungeons. I'd advise you to check out both!

Our brave adventurers from left to right: Drakus, Tristin, Snibly, and Gilna.

The dungeon layout.

Current projects and painting area...

 So the aforementioned unicorn painting with the wife will have to resume later this week as she works late. Anyhow, I thought I'd show you what my messy painting area looks like! Currently working on the set of six Ral Partha minis that come with the Dragon Quest board game.Two are mostly done just need to work on the bases, which I'll do all six in one go.

 If you've ever played Ultima Online, you'll see the caster in the front row is based off of a Game Master from that game. :)

Painting unicorns, with a special guest...My wife! :)

 My wife always said she'd never put paint to brush and apply it to miniatures yet here we are, painting unicorns side by side...It could be the beginning of a beautiful thing! ;) Will have another update showing the finished products!

 Also, I wanted to show off my coffee mug...How cool is that?! Wal-Mart photo center for the win. :)

The first of the Bones 2 minis painted! Chaos Warrior and Mushroom Men!

 I had a busy weekend but still managed to paint up seven figures...That's plain amazing for me! Really excited about a lot of these new Bones 2 sculpts. The first guy I knew I had to paint was the Hellknight Order of the Nail...

 I always loved the old GW Chaos Knights and their wild color schemes, so this is paying homage to them!

Magnus, Wizard of Hope

 I haven't been doing a whole lot of painting the last week or so but I did manage to get this guy finished up last week. He's my all time favorite Reaper Miniatures sculpt and maybe my all-time favorite miniature. I hope I did him justice!

 As we're getting closer to fall, I decided to go with kind of fall colors, so I went with mostly brown, as you can see. Personally, I prefer natural tones when doing miniatures but sometimes they just don't capture the essence of a sculpt but I think my color choices really made him shine.

Magnus, Wizard of Hope by Reaper Miniatures

 I actually got him "free" as part of the Reaper 12 Days of Christmas deal they had last year. If you bought $65 or more worth of stuff, you got a free hard to find miniature, a different one each day. Well worth it!

The thief and the necromancer...

Sneaky thief makes his approach...from behind...

A couple more painted minis. The necro is particularly well sculpted and came out great in Bones form. I might have to paint up another one. He kind of reminds me of Allanon from the first Shanara trilogy, if you've ever read them you'd know what I mean. ;)

Reaper Bones Necromancer

Slipshadow the thief Reaper (Metal)

After a long camping trip, here's an update!

Grave Wraith by Reaper (Bones).

 This guy actually saw some action in a game of Song of Blades and Heroes. While he got killed in the end, he managed to scare some goblins! I was inspired by some old GW books I had and decided to paint my ghosts up like those. Simply a light green with a heavy wash of green. I thought it turned out well, so I went ahead and painted ten more! They kind of remind me of something from Ghost Busters.

Spirit Reaper (Bones)

Ghost Reaper (Bones)

Lurien, Ghost Reaper (Metal)

Arrius, Skeletal Warrior Reaper (Bones)

 Really liked how this guy turned out. I painted him up as one of the personalities for my Undead force for Song of Blades and Heroes. He hasn't seen battle yet but hopefully soon!

Skeleton Warriors Reaper (Bones)

Did some slight converting with these guy's weapons. Swapped most of them out for some GW weapons.

Goblin Archers Reaper (Bones)

 This guys may seem like mooks but they actually slaughtered most of my Undead army in a game of SoBaH! Crafty little buggers!

Ghostly Summons Reaper (Bones)

Night Spectre Reaper (Bones)

Ghost Kings Reaper (Bones)

  And finally, we have these guys. I wanted a wight, so I went with the guy on the left. Then I got to painting a bunch of ghosts and thought he'd look cool all ghostly, and succeeded! :D

A week's worth of work! Mostly Reaper Bones.

 It's been a long and hot week but I got a lot accomplished both on the miniatures front and scenery for my Song of Blades and Heroes set. Without further delay, here's some of my work this week, enjoy!

Reaper Sir Justin slightly converted rendition of the Ultima VIII Avatar. I saw this figure and knew I had to paint him as the Avatar! :)

I shaved off and filed the shield device cross that was on the shield originally.

Reaper Bones Treasure Chest

Reaper Bones Battleguard (copper)

Reaper Bones Battleguard (Steel)

Reaper Bones Flesh Golem

Another Reaper Bones Flesh Golem

Reaper Bones Stone Golem...I actually did two of these identical to each other. I figure I can use them as terrain as well!

Reaper Bones Zombies...Really looking forward to the Bones 2 wave of zombies!