Legion of the Damned Space Marines

 

I've had these Games Workshop Legion of the Damned Space Marine classic figs for years now and have been working on the off and on for the last year. These guys are tough with their invulnerable save and now they ignore cover with their bolters. The new models from GW are here. Unfortunately I lost the sheet of what colors I used but will guess with what I can.

I started primed black.

Drybrushed with GW mid color grey.

Washed in GW Green wash.

P3 Menoth White Highlight (with cat hair).

Then for the flames P3 Cygnar Yellow, P3 Orange and P3 Dark Red.

Finally I used light P3 Red for the eyes and P3 Cold Steel for the guns. I also applied a bit of P3 Devlan Mud on the bone parts.

Now I have enough for three partial squads (of 8, 8 and 7).

Now to get back to Malifaux and other things!

My Malifaux 2E Guide Cards

I have been playing Malifaux off and on for two years as a casual player. Since Malifaux 2E has come out I've been itching to play more and teach new players how to play. One thing that distracts teaching new players is flipping through the rulebook. To solve that I've created a way to make the process easier with the theme of using playing cards.

Now I know that playing cars are central to the game of Malifaux anyways but hear me out. I've made the setup, strategies and schemes to fit on playing cards. I even made them for how to conduct turns.

Most people have card sleeves and spare playing cards around. If not use an older Malifaux deck and the sleeves.

 

The first card is the step by step overview of how to set up a game.

 It has all the basics and each successive card has more detail.

 

Then players can flip cards from the top of the deck as they go.

 I'd recommend the terrain trait cards be left to the side as they help out while the game is played.

  I included a scoring card for each player that can be marked on and erased after the game is done.

 

I also made a red and blue deck of the schemes. That way each player can pick out the ones they choose, mark on them if there is specific objectives and keep them secret until revealed.

Here are the card sheets for Setup, Schemes and another for Strategies if you want both players to have them. There's also these Turn cards including a handy turn tracker. Enjoy!

Firestorm Armada 2.0 and Battle For Valhalla Starter

 

 Well, the new edition came out last month but my copy from Spartan Games didn't arrive till recently, due to the courier company forgetting to leave a card that it had arrived. I was going to write a review but this one here from Mann's Model Moments covers it all and then some. His review and unboxing for the Battle of Valhalla 2-Player box here is also excellent and I would be hard pressed to improve on it.

The two player set is also a great cash value. Each patrol fleet costs 39 pounds sterling each and the rulebook costs 20 pounds sterling. The two player starter costs 80 pounds sterling and includes a Drindrezi and Terran patrol fleet plus a rulebook plus a repair dock model plus two extra large and small SRS wing tokens and a bunch of dice. Its at least a savings of 18 pounds sterling (~$32 Canadian). Buy a little more and they ship for free. An excellent way to start in the game and you can get two with a friend and you would each have two patrol fleets of a race, a rulebook and a repair dock.

I'll be posting my painting of the models from this box and my own attempts to spread the word about this great game in the year to come.

Kelwona Gamestores

Every year I have been traveling to Kelwona to spend the winter holidays with my wife's parents. Each Boxing day I head for the sales and here are the two gamestores in Kelwona:

Quantum Games: This has become my favorite in Kelwona. They have a 50% off table that I've gotten great stuff from. This year the big find was Malifaux metal figs/avatars and sewers of Malifaux from Wyd/Worldworks. They are clean, tidy and have engaging staff.

Dragon Cards and Collectables: They were my go to spot when I was playing Warhammer 40k heavily, as they did and still do have some classic hard to find stuff. In fact they have lots of classic hard to find items, as well as the new, but are cluttered and dusty. If you are looking for that gem of a miniature or RPG, ask the owner and look around. Just be careful of the piles.

San Diego Game Stores

I travel to San Diego with work occasionally and it had been a few years so I wanted to visit old favorites and expand my game store knowledge. Here they are:

Game Towne: Set in Old Town they were once the place for me and my friends to stop at. They have gotten a little more dusty and dingy but the owner still cares about his customers. There can be some great finds if you give a look around but he does not carry any Malifaux, Infinity or Privateer Press miniature products. They offer a military discount of 10%.

Villainous Lair Gaming: Not to be confused with their comic store location down the street, this well lit and clean store has a few tables to play on, RPGs, GW and Privateer press miniatures, with some Malifaux. It also has a very good selection of independent RPGs. They offer a military discount of 10%.

At Ease Games: Hard gamestore to bus to from downtown San Diego but very large with lots of products and gaming tables. Helpful staff and customers.

For food places visit my non-gaming blogsite here.

Iron Fence

 On boxing day I picked up some cheap scenery...a fence! It was 60% off because it was designed for Christmas village scenes. I normally bought my cheap Christmas scenery at Michaels but they have been putting it away for next year. London Drugs has been my place of choice now.

 The height and scale is perfect. For games the fences can even be targeted to make gaps.

The one package is not enough so I hope to find more in the future. They also only fit together in a straight line but it looks fine like this.

Second Precursor Knight and UA unit

I painted another Privateer Press Warmachine Cygnar Ally Precursor Knight and UA unit.

I started with black Krylon spray.

Drybrushed P3 Cold Steel, then GW Deneb Stone on the cloth parts, then P3 Menoth White Highlight on the cloth parts.

Drybrush Morrow White on the cloth parts. P3 Midland Flesh then drybrush P3 Ryn Flesh on the faces.

P3 Cygnar Gold on the armor detail and P3 Rusksack Tan on the mace handle.

On the tabard bottoms I used Prismacolor blue for the lines. For the UA I used P3 Cygnar Blue and some P3 Orange for the gems.

I also used P3 Cygnar Gold for the dots on the front of the model's base and the back. That way if two units are mixing it up I can differentiate the two.

Now I have models for Warcaster Constance Blaze's tier list.

Deadzone Scenery Kickstarter

At the end of May, I participated in a Kickstarter by Mantic Games for their sci-fi skirmish game, Deadzone. Although I wasn't interested in another sci-fi skirmish game, as Infinity and Warhammer 40k fill that role, I did like the scenery. Well, the scenery arrive last week.

Obviously I didn't get 100 sets but I did get the one-click urban wargames table, extra accessories and sprues and the Antenociti's Workshop addons.

 The box was large and arrived in great shape.

  Lots and lots of sprues!

  Its less imposing when they are better organized.

I was worried that the plastic may be flimsy but they are solid. Examples of completed scenery are on the internet here. I'm looking forward to working on these in 2014. They will be selling their scenery separately soon here.

Here is a video of the scenery from Mantic.

Below is the Antenociti's Workshop add-ons. They came unassembled and unpainted but will look great once done.

Well, as always, I have a lot of assembling and painting to do.

Out of Town and Out of Touch

I will be out of town and out of blog communication (love those work firewalls) until the 20th of December.

Once back I will be posting about my Warmachine Cygnar Precusor Knights and UA, Warhammer Lost and the Damned, Terrain and other things. Stay tuned.

3d Puzzle of the Riviera

I have been searching for good 3d puzzle terrain as quick scenery and to exercise my mind.

I found it in the Riviera 3d puzzle from Wrebbit for a measly $2.

 It looks very nice assembled with figures. Almost like a movie set.

 It is built to be separated but there is a problem...

...as the alleyways are even too tight for a Malifaux Neverborn Terror Tot.

Separating it again into four parts makes it really usable for the table as scenery. This is the best 3d puzzle i've found that fits what I need.

 My cat Leonardo approves.

Using TV shows as a Model for a One or Two person Role Playing Game

There are many TV shows whose formula would work well for a one or two player roleplaying game. I'll use two current examples: Sleepy Hollow
and Continuum.
 
Sleepy Hollow is a modern day adventure story with major supernatural elements taking place in one geographic area, the town of sleepy hollow.
One of the two main characters are a female policewoman, Lt. Abby Mills, who is struggling to make sense of the odd goings on while coming to
grips with the demon she saw when she was a teenager and the years of denial of what she saw. The other is Icabod Crane, a British national
who fought for the Americans during the revolutionary war and was a special agent for George Washington against the forces of darkness. This
was before he decapitated a mercenary and was put in suspension by his witch wife until modern times, where the headless mercenary who is one
of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, is looking for his missing head. The two characters are supposedly the two observers, written in the
bible in revelations, to witness the seven years before the apocalypse happens with all kinds of evil badness. Breaking it down it is:
 

-an adventure story with lots of supernatural elements but the main characters do not have supernatural abilities;
-takes place in one geographic area; 

-the main characters do not know what will happen next until it happens;
-both are a fish out of water for different reasons; and
-individual adventures have a beginning, middle and end with a thread that weaves through each adventure.
 
As I see it, it can be a perfect solo game with the main player-character (PC) playing the policeman/woman. Ichabod is the
information source, as he infodumps about what he's been through but he could also be a PC in the right hands. Each character has a past that
gets a bit of the surface scratched each of three to four part adventure in the form of flashbacks or visions. This type of campaign is light
with lots of winks and nods, because the police chief gives the PC latitude to do their own thing and nobody questions why weirdness is
going on in a small town on the American Appalachians. A solution is to have the trope that common people forget or remember things differently
and the named characters don't, which I've used in one of my campaigns.
 
Continuum is a modern day quest, police procedural with sci-fi elements. The main character is Kiera Cameron, a corporate policewoman or
Protector from 2077 in the city of Vancouver. Corporations rule the world and a terrorist/revolutionary organization known as Liber8 has been squashed and
the leaders about to be executed. Kiera is one of the Protectors guarding the prisoners when they activate a time travel device and
everyone in the vicinity is transported back to our time. Kiera mingles with the local police force as a liaison from section 6, a cover
invented by a young Alec Sadler (whom is one of the head corporate leaders and scientist in the future), to stop Liber8 from jump starting
their organization earlier than it originally happened. Kiera wants to reassemble the time travel device and stop Liber8 so that she can return
to an unchanged future with her son and husband. Breaking it down it has:
 

-quest story with heavy conspiratorial and ethical dilemmas. Kiera is basically good but will bend morals to get home and stop Liber8 while
Liber8 do not want to be slaves under a future corporate dictatorship but are willing to kill to achieve it.
-takes place in one geographic area;
-Main characters know what the end goal is but not always how to get there;
-are fish out of water; and
-adventures have a beginning and middle with complications skewing the little victories at the end as there are always little twists from
Liber8 or other players.
 
It is also a perfect game for a small amount of characters. Kiera is the main PC as its her quest the other PCs support so it could be a solo
adventure. Alec Sadler also is trying to live a normal life with the weight of helping to create a future he does not like. Her Vancouver
police partner, Detective Fonnegra is a smaller PC who initially is unaware of Kiera's past (future). Each of the episodes generally has a
scene from Kiera's future time that has relevance in her current time and many scenes of what other characters are doing to add to the story.
An role-playing game such as this is heavy on the plot and story with some room for improve but has an overall conspiracy, as having Kiera in
the past with Liber8 was not an accident.
 
As these two shows suggest, there is an overall arc but Sleepy Hollow is looser with the journey while Continuum is stricter. Both can work as
outlines for your roleplaying game either in parts or whole chunks. Just make it different enough that your players will not know what happens
next.