Genestealers - Batch one

Just a quick post to show off the Genestealers from my copy of Space Hulk.

I'm half way through painting these chaps and have started painting the terminators again. I must say the process of "properly painting" models is a time consuming one. I use so many short cuts these days that when I actually try to paint well, its takes rough FOREVER to get anything done.

These Genestealers were actually finished many moons ago, but i never posted pictures of them for some unknown reason. They probably just got lost in the shuffle while I was posting pictures from all the other boardgames I've done.

Looking back at them I must say i'm quite pleased with the results. It's a rare thing to look at an older model and say "you know, that's not too bad".

Anyway, hopefully this week I can bring you pictures of the 2nd terminator squad. I've only got the thunder hammer sergeant left to do, but the prospect pf painting his stupidly ornate shield fills me with dread.

Horus Heresy - The game, not the books...... no not the forgeworld one, the other one.

Well, for an IP (The Horus Heresy) that has a bucket load of fans, very few people have heard of this game.

I put that down to a few things, but mostly on the fact that its largest target demographics weren't advertised at.

It didn't appear in any GW stores, because they only sell their own product. By that, I mean they only sell the products they produce themselves, not anything licensed  That stuff has to stand on its own merits.

In some ways that's a real pity as those people who get their gaming news and information only from GWstores, White dwarf and 40k only blogs (screw you Ron) have missed out on some real gems of boardgames produced by FFG. Death Angel is pretty fun and Chaos in the Old World is a master piece. It's a bit of a shame really.

The second major demographic would be the fans of the Horus Heresy book series. This is a huge selling series and some of them are a damn fine read (Especially the Dan Abnett ones). I own a fair few of the books and I never did see a link in advert for this game. Oh right, that's because they are published by GW and they don't offer any support to other companies using their IP.

It's a shame that this game has largely been overlooked, and by many accounts was not a financial success. It has some pretty clever mechanics (The initiative system and order system are both very good, as is the treatment of the Primarchs) and seems to replicate the epic nature of the siege of Terra quite well.

The models are passable, if a little on the mediocre side. Its a real pity there aren't any nice Primarch models, but I guess they probably weren't allowed to do that.

I do have one gripe about the game. It's not "historically" accurate. I know that sounds ludicrous as its a fictional conflict, but in order to get some game elements in they messed up who was actually fighting the siege of Terra.

The loyalist chapters are all there and all correct, the White Scars, Imperial Fists and Blood Angels. They really do form the core counter attacking force for the Imperial player and each legion plays thematically. Dorn and his fists are great attacking or defending fortifications, Sanguinius and the blood angels hit like a 18 wheel truck, and Khan and the White Scars can move rapidly to support attacks all over the place.

Where it falls down is on the chaos side. You see, in order to have the 4 Chaos powers represented they fudged the Legions that were at the Siege of Terra slightly. There are no "Sons of Horus" models, which i find truly bizarre. You would think the first legion to be included in a game about the Horus Heresy would be the Sons of Horus.

The focus is on the four chaos powers and their associated legions. So the Word Bearers and Iron Warriors, along with their Primarchs do not feature at all. It's a minor gripe, less so than when i initially thought that some of the Primarchs included in the game (Mortarion and Magnus) were actually absent.

The Traitor legions do work well and are quite thematic. Angron and the World Eaters are excellent on the offence, not so good on defence, Magnus the Red shoots massive bombardments out of his evil red glowing eye, Fulgrim corrupts imperial army units and Mortarion makes every enemy unit weaker (Hes pretty much as OP as anyone in this game).

I've only run a "theoretical" game at the time of writing this, I look forward to having my first "practical" game in the near future. As a project it was quite fun to paint, and, as you can tell, I didn't go overboard with detail. Drybrushing was my friend :)

Coming up ......... SPACE HULKS IN SPACE!

Horned Rat - Chaos in the Old World expansion

I admit to being a little worried about the Horned Rat expansion for Chaos in the Old World.

The core game was so expertly balanced and the four major gods played so differently, in such an interdependent way, that i thought adding a 5th player would through the game off its axis.

I was wrong

The Horned Rat just slipped into the game without creating a stir or causing anyone to think "WELL THATS JUST BS RIGHT THERE!"

I will admit we played with the original set of cards for the other chaos powers and kept the original old world deck for a first play through though.

How do the rats play? Kind of like a mix between Nurgle and Tzeentch. They don't add corruption markers but they do rely on gang tactics (and there are a lot of them). Scoring is done through dominating an area, so if the Skaven want to score and are, they hit it hard and with a lot of dudes.

They also have the charming ability to redeploy quite well. Rats just pop out of burrows wherever they damm well want.

This is the key to the rats play style. Lurk around the edges for a chunk of the game, and then turn up on-masse when a region is about to be corrupted or a throw down is occurring. I rate them as my second my favorite faction to play now..... (after my first love, Slanneesh, NOOKIE FOR THE NOOKIE GOD)

Anyway, my original blog post is here with my thoughts on the core game and a look at the minis

For painting these guys I took a simple approach (I know, you're all stunned and amazed at the concept). The browns are mostly highlights from the darkflesh colour. The bases are chainmail highlighted with some brass effects. Probably the only cool thing on these guys is the bases, which were done with snot green through scorpion green and higher.

Battlestar Galactica - Review and Conversions

Game in motion - Humans in serious trouble

Battlestar Galactica is a great game.

Well… review done, on to talking about the paint jobs!

Oh…wait. So you’re saying a review of a game has to include more than one sentence of approval? 

Man, who makes these rules up?

Right… so why is BSG a great game? Well, for me it comes down to a few things. Theme, Production Values, Interactivity and IMCOMPUTREACH! (more on that word later on in the review)

THEME!

A lot of ideas that are great in one media suck terribly when ported over to another. Just because X was a great PC game, doesn't mean it will be a good film (Doom anyone?) and just because something was a popular comic book doesn't mean the film wont suck (Screw you Stallone).

This is especially true in the Boardgame world. A lot of boardgames based on other successful films, game, books etc suck terribly. There are some exceptions (Game of Thrones, Dune and War of the Ring are great games), but for every one of those classics there are 100 versions of monopoly.

The game captures the theme of battlestar perfectly, not only do the game mechanics represent what happens in the show (Space battles, intrigue, resource struggles) they also capture the emotions as well. You always feel tense and like something horrible is about to happen.

Colonial Fleet!

Production Values

Its fantasy flight games, so you know it’s going to be shiny. Battlestar is a high water mark even for FFG though. The board is great and introduced the “wheel” concept that they have repeated in many games since. The cards are all high quality and have rich flavour text and photos from the series. The cardboard tokens are all high quality and the figures are pretty good. My only gripe with the original game was the cardboard basestars, but they fixed that in the expansions.

Interactivity

A lot of games fall down on the “it’s someone else turn, guess ill just sit here and watch” factor. BSG has very little of this. Someone actual draw cards, move, take an action takes very little time in comparison to the crisis phase which involves all players interacting. Card plat, politicking, accusations and mockery form a solid part of every turn.

Even a players move can be an interactive experience as people will be saying “so….. why did you do that? Are you trying to make us lose YOU CYLON SCUM”. Which brings us to…..

INCOMPUTREACH!

This is what makes the game golden. Because at least one player is actively trying to sabotage the fleet you get paranoid about peoples actions. Sometime, people just make dumb moves in a game. It’s not because they are the Cylon  it’s because they just made a dumb move. This is why we coined the term INCOMPUTREACH!

INCOMPUTREACH

Definition – An action that seems treacherous but could have simply resulted from incompetence. This action leaves you confused and suspicious at the same time.

This feeling alone can make games a memorable experience. Many a time someone has said “I thought you were the Cylon when you did X” only for it to be revealed that the player just didn't think it through.

I love incomputreach, loves it.

Cylon Fleet

And Painting

As shown I did two things with this game; paint the models and create flying bases. The paint jobs are very simple with the Cylon ships being given a simple black undercoat and silver highlight (with red eyes). The vipers are white, which is a pain to paint, with a fine red strip (which was repainted multiple times to get it right on some vipers). The Raptors are the old Scorched Brown from the citadel range.

The flying stands are very simple. I drilled a small hole in each spacecraft and glued modelling wire into them. I then got old bolts and filled them with milliput, once they started to dry a little I pushed the modelling wire into the bolt and ensured it did not come out the bottom. I let them dry (some required more superglue later on to ensure they stayed in the base) and then trimmed the bottom of the base with a modelling knife to ensure they were flat.

Overall

A solid 9 Cylon Andys out of 10.

Mission Complete! - Full Cygnar Army

A year ago my army looked like this. 

Now it looks like this. 

Click on the image to see full size (its big!)

IT DONE!

DONE DONE DONE!

200 plus points of Cygnar, all in a row, all painting in the last year.

How does it feel?

GREAT!

7 casters, over a dozen Warjacks and plenty of troop options. I don't really need much more (although I am planning on picking up a few bits and pieces in the new year)

Looking forward to taking some time off painting Warmachine now to focus in on doing some boardgames.

ADDITIONAL BONUS!

Epic Nemo Pic!

FEAR THE MO!

Iron Kingdoms rune language

I've been asked multiple times for the rune scripts I use on my bases. I copied down the Cygnar language a while back, but in a recent thread on the PP forums "coinlord" made this image available.

It's a very handy resource for anyone who wants to convert English into Khador, Cygnar, Menoth, Cryx or Rhulic. I'll keep it here on my blog for anyone who needs it.

Thanks and credit to Coinlord for the image.

For an additional giggle, translate the following base :)

EPIC Haley!

Epic Haley is just that, shes epic

Both the model and her effect on the table are simply awesome.

Any astute readers with memories longer than a goldfish (actually gold fish have ok memories, so lets change that to anyone with a memory longer than a politicians in regards to their own blunders) will recall that I love painting robes and cloaks.

The simplest techniques generate great results on robes.... and well Epic Haley is just one giant robe.

I really enjoyed painting this model, and if anything I skimped work on the body and weapon to focus on the flowing cloak bits.

The technique is highlighting at its purest. Start with a dark colour and use progressively lighter highlights as you paint the parts of the model the are closer to the top.

If you're having trouble visualizing what to highlight, try spray painting the model black and then applying a light grey or silver dry brush to the model. The high areas will pick up the drybrushing and that should act as a highlighting guide.

In game Epic Haley is beyond stupidly powerful. She is arguably the best warcaster in any faction. Her feat is a complete game breaker, she has high focus and a fantastic spell list on top of a warjack bond and the ability to copy opponents spells.

She won't beat very many enemy casters into submission with her fists, but as a support caster she right up there.

I've only used her twice in games so far and shes won both of them. If anything she was so good by herself that i barely put any thought into my list. Just pick random models, add epic Haley  and you've probably got a good shot at winning.

Coming up soon, Epic Nemo and a break from Warmachine painting.