Skip here, once again. Scott has been gracious enough to ask me if I wanted to continue with my long-overdue posts, and I accepted. So, intermittently I will be posting my musings on painting miniatures. I think that I'll start off with a super - a slightly modified Power Man, in his original (and best, IMO) costume. I took a Heroclix figure (but can't remember which one) and shaved his hair off with an exacto blade. I then re-primed him, and painted him as you see here. The base is just an mdf one which I painted to look like a worn sidewalk. 

Some of those 'clix are really well-sculpted, and totally worth getting! 

 

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Something Rotten

 Reaper Bones are the gift that keeps on giving to fantasy and sci-fi gamers alike. 

A few weeks ago I picked up a Bones giant maggot to use as an adversary in some future game. I can see having this beast as a surprise hazard in a game of TFA, as it is depicted bursting from the ground, it's deadly maw gaping to consume its likely prey. 

Here Speed Paints again served me well! Check it out! 

Thanks for visiting! 

--Scott

Hive Nobles

 I found myself wanting unarmed, elegantly dressed human nobles for my Techno-Fantasy Skirmish, Inquisitor 28mm games. 

I checked Etsy and found that Griffon Miniatures had some figures that were ideal for my needs. 

While these figures are not truly sci-fi, the nature of the "techno-fantasy" background suggests a baroque styling that harkens back to "Old Terra" and the over-dressed, thin-blooded nobility that once ruled it. 

Now for the pics! 

I painted these Guilders primarily using Army Painter Speed Paints. They work very well, but have a few quirks. They have a long cure time, so don't try to seal them right away. Also, don't try to use any medium when painting with them. Medium seems to disrupt their smoothness and flow. 

Very happy with the results on these three! 

Thanks for looking! 

Scott

Another Play-Test In The Books!

 Another play-test in the books for TFA! 

This time I took a 5-model warband against two Chaos Space Marines, both built-out as major characters.

While their initial bolter shots were deadly, I was able to close with them and enjoyed some truly lucky dice rolls. 

I played a raid scenario, defeated my foes, and absconded with the main objective. 

New crew for this play-test, though a few of them were from past bands.

Malachi Oathbreaker guarding the objective. 

A nice shot of my home-made jungle terrain!

Insane courage!!!

The classic double-team! Best way to take on a major character. 

Zarthos, Malachi's partner charges in, but he is headed off by my leader, Victus.

Malachi goes down!

    

Zarthos goes down!

This game inspired me to create another ability for Inhuman called Terrifying. It makes characters less likely to hit the Double Bonus against them. 

Thanks for visiting! 

TFA: Project Process Update

 I have been discussing the latest play-tests of my current project, Techno-Fantasy Adventure (TFA). Today I want to show off a preliminary sketch of the cover from the talented Jay Piscopo. 

Jay imbues his work with an amazing sense of dynamism, and each piece tells a story. I can't wait to see this in finished and in color. Jay is doing a number of other pieces for the interior as well, so this little book is going to look amazing! 

Thanks for visiting! 

--Scott

Haarlock's Legacy Continues

 Stu and I played part one of Damned Cities, the second volume of the Haarlock's Legacy series for Dark Heresy. I found this one a little harder to adapt to the Techno-Fantasy Adventure (TFA) skirmish RPG rules I am working on, but once I made a few key decisions, it worked out well. 

We completed two games in around 2.5 hours, and that included eating a frozen pizza along the way! 

In this session, we arrived on Sinophia Magna. While nobody bothered to meet us at the space port, we hitched a ride into the city on a merchant's canal barge. We were promptly ambushed by a group of Undertow gangers led by a two-gun bravo named Devo. Yes, I know. Crash and whip. 

Anyway, we fought them off and sent them running, while taking no losses. 

In the second scenario, we followed a lead to the rundown Section XIII of the city. There we tried to interview (and ultimately rescue) a dreg named Sokken. But someone else had bad things in mind for the mysterious wretch. This party sent Warp-crafted zombies called Risen after him, and us, since we were in their path. 

They proved too much for us, and we were forced to flee! We had to leave Sokken to a terrible fate. But we got to know our enemy a little better. 

Here are some pics! 

We learned a lot rules-wise. Number one lesson, the rules are pretty good! I know that might sound weird coming from the writer himself, but they really are fun and highly adaptable. So that's good. We also fine tuned the retreat rules and they work very well now. 

We tested the Gunfighter trait and that worked Ok, but we did take Devo out pretty quickly. 

Ultimately, I am very happy and confident that we'll be starting layout soon! 

Thanks for looking! 

--Scott

Chaos Space Marines

 I know at some point in my Inquisitor skirmish-RPG journey we'll need to face the forces of Chaos. Chaos Space Marines, to be precise! I acquired two Blackstone Fortress Chaos Space Marines to paint up for just such an occasion! 

Here they are! Brought to you by the wonder of Army Painter Speed paints! 

Later this week, more to come on the Haarlock's Legacy campaign. 

Thanks for looking!

--Scott 

Dark Heresy RPG to Skirmish Notes

 Somebody asked about my method for adapting the Dark Heresy adventures to the tabletop skirmish format. It's mix of "stand-up" role-playing and writing some tables to create some random elements for each encounter. 

I took a couple of pictures of my notebook pages to show my work on this. A picture is literally worth several hundred words in this case! 

This page shows my notes from the end of Carnival of Blood. Since we got our butts kicked at the end and had to run away, I had to come up with a workaround to get us to the final chapter, the 13th Hour. 

In the 13th Hour, I wanted us to do some role-play prior to the action, so I made up this table and Stu and I each talked to three of the characters. Based on some rules in TFA, we used our stats to interact with them and gain info. If we succeeded, we earned bonuses to our attacks on the Widower. 

I hope this provides some insight into my somewhat seat-of-my-pants process of adapting this amazing material to the tabletop. I should also add that Alan Bligh's work on these adventures is amazing. It is so sad that he passed too soon. But his work lives on. 

Thanks! 

--Scott

Concluding Tattered Fates Part 2

 After taking out Gang Boss Papa Grist, we earned our invitation to the Revel at Gabriel Chase. 

After arriving and  gathering some helpful clues with some social interaction rolls (and rules, see below!),  we faced the twin horrors of the Widower and the Beloved, a vile Chaos sorcerer. 

It was really a three way battle, as the Beloved wanted to be the one to take out the Widower so he could collect his essence and enslave him. The Widower just wanted to slay any living being it came across! Stu and I were hoping more hapless party-goers would wander into the Widower's path, but after he slew the first one, the others just seemed to randomly avoid him! 

It was left to us to face him. We had gathered enough info to learn that opening the fabled  Steel Clock and securing its Keystone would allow us to truly destroy the Widower for good. So we tasked Hanse Grebs and Septimus Dexter with making the Intellect checks to accomplish this extended task. Unfortunately, after just one attempt, Hanse Grebs was charged and slain by the Widower. 

Meanwhile, Stu's Vostroyan IG conscripts were harrying the Widower with withering fire form their long-las sniper. My servitor, Ergo-VI also added to the fire on the vile sorcerer. Eventually we took him out! Big relief there. 

Then we fought a desperate delaying melee against the Widower, and Dexter successfully opened the clock and destroyed the Keystone! The decadent city of Xicarph, and the whole world of Qaddis, were saved! 

Lady Melua and a Vostroyan battle the Widower; Hanse has already fallen!

Dexter works feverishly to open the Steel Clock. I was pretty happy with my quickly knocked together Steel Clock terrain piece!

Behind the clock, Ergo-VI and the Vostroyan Sergeant have finished off the Beloved and are moving around to engage the Widower just as Dexter destroys the Keystone! 

In all, my theory about adapting the Dark Heresy modules to my Techno-Fantasy Adventure* rules worked splendidly!

More to come! 

--Scott

* I have changed the title from Techno-Fantasy Skirmish to Techno-Fantasy Adventure because I have added enough RPG elements for folks to run the game as a simple RPG. So now it's keyword skirmish, co-op, PvP, and RPG! 

Concluding Tattered Fates

 Yesterday, Stu and I finished the first installment of the old Dark Heresy adventure series, Haarlock's Legacy.  Entitled Tattered Fates, we adapted this RPG adventure into a skirmish RPG format using my Techno-Fantasy Skirmish rules currently under development. Unlike the middle chapter that we played last week, we gave a good accounting of ourselves this time around, and we managed to save the decadent city-state of Xicarph, and the whole planet of Qaddis! 

The rules themselves are really rounding into form. There are things you just can't know unless you play them out on the tabletop, and we rounded off a few more rough corners yesterday. Check out some snapshots of the action! 

Our setup of battle number one. It was a rundown part of the city of Xicarph. The Spider Bride, our sometime ally, fed our target, Papa Grist, bad info. That gave us a chance to ambush him. 

This shows the TFS initiative system in action. The chits, or tokens, cut down the side-table management as you can place them right on the figures. It's great for solo and co-op play because randomly assigning turn order each round means you don't know who is going next!  

That's my scratch-built gun-servitor, Ergo-VI, next to my Adept, Septimus Dexrter. 

Papa Grist's bodyguard, Crackmarrow, really gave us a hard time last session, but this time we softened him up with ranged fire before he got to us. 

We got lucky and rolled the Xerxes result on the Strange Happenings table. This wandering Chaos warrior ended up fighting for us this game. His random placement put him right in the path of Papa Grist! 

Here we are finishing off Crackmarrow! Not pictured, but we also whacked Grist's other major bodyguard, the deadly psyker named Bliss. 

We couldn't let Xerxes have all of the fun! We piled in and finished off Grist in style!

At this point we earned our invitation to the revel that would put us face-to-face with the true horror behind the trouble in Xicarph. I will cover that climactic battle in the next post, but I want to conclude here by expressing my excitement for this current project. I am really satisfied about how these rules are coming together! 

More to come! 

North Star Military Figures Kitbashing

 Between North Star Military Figures and Wargames Atlantic, we live in a golden age of affordable, hard plastic 28mm miniatures. 

I have had a blast kitbashing North Star's Frostgrave Barbarians with Stargraves Crew and Mercenary sprues. They're just awesomely adaptable! 

Check out these pics of some of my recent work: 

I painted these guys with a combo of GW Contrast, Foundry, Coat D'Arms, and new Army Painter speed paints. The guy in the green pants has already seen battle in our play-test games for TFS. 

I hope to do a whole warband based on the North Star bodies and various arm options from other kits. 

Thanks for looking! 

--Scott