Hordes: 15 pt. Trollblood Campaign Force

As I've said over the past few posts, the Trollbloods I am working on (and reacquiring in some cases) are for a specific, store-based escalation campaign. While also narrative in nature, the campaign will slowly build in points over time. We're starting at 15 pts.

Here's my list:

Madrak Ironhide (+6 beast pts.)
Troll Impaler 5 pts.
Dire Troll Mauler 9 pts.
Trollblood Fenblades 5 pts. (leader + 5)
Whelps 2 pts. (5 solo models)
=====
total = 15 pts.

And here's a couple of shots of the assembled force:

I played one game last Sunday and it was quite fun. It's a neat and balanced force, and the Whelps really allow me to run the Trolls "hot"--I may need to add more Whelps in the future, but I'd like to use different models if possible. We'll see.

Thanks for visiting!

--Scott

Hordes: Dire Troll Mauler

I could not make this latest foray into Trollbloods without doing a Dire Troll Mauler. The new plastic kit allows you to make one of three types of Dire Trolls: Blitzer, Bomber, or Mauler.  I chose the Mauler for aesthetic reasons, but I am told by the PP cognoscenti that he is an auto-include in any troll list. This is a rare occasion where my tastes and the best rules converge.

Anyway, assembled and painted him over Friday and Saturday. Love this kit!

All I can say is I want more plastic!  The plastic Swamp Troll news was great, but let's have more! Plastic Pygs would be awesome!

Thanks for visiting!

--Scott

Hordes: Trollblood Axer

Got the Trollblood Axer done a few days ago, but I am finally getting around to posting pics of him!  He's a serviceable, 6 pt. light warbeast with a great Animus that adds +2" of movement to a target.

Next post I'll show off the first heavy in my band, the plastic Dire Troll Mauler!  Then later this week I will go a bit into the 15 pt. build I will use for our initial games.

Thanks for visiting!

--Scott

Hordes: The Albino Impaler

Here's some shots of the albino Impaler for my Madrak force. The white skin will also make telling him apart from the other Impaler quite easy!

Blurry pic, but Madrak has his escort now!

Next up, the Axer! 

Thanks for visiting!

--Scott

Hordes: Plastic Madrak Complete!

First off, Happy New Year!

Been sneaking in some productive painting sessions the past few days, and I managed to get my plastic Madrak Trollblood warlock done, along with an albino Impaler who I envision as his "personal" warbeast.

Having 15 pts. by this coming Sunday should now be no sweat, as I reacquired the plastic Fenblade unit I painted last year for a friend in a nifty trade.

Let's have a look at Madrak, as it all starts with him!

I employed Secret Weapon chalks to weather the armor.

Another look at the weathering.

Incidentally, I'll be photographing my Trollbloods in the War Torn Worlds Ruinopolis terrain system. The reason why is that Andrew and Rico are running a story based Warmachine/Hordes campaign where controlling territory could become important. It's set in the Cryx area of Cain Thornwood Forest, a place rife with swamps thick wilderness and ruins from the old Orgoth empire. I figure Madrak has come south and taken up residence in one of these old ruins until he can win better quarters.

My Ruinopolis set covers a nice 2' x 2' area, so this will make excellent terrain for a section of the battle area. I plan to include some moss and lichen to give it that overgrown look.

In the next couple of posts I will show off the Albino Impaler light warbeast I finished, then the Axer light warbeast after that.

Thanks for visiting!

--Scott

ITEN: Rapturous Beasts Ascending

So my buddy Stu saw my post on Reaper's mutant and got a burr in his saddle to play some In The Emperor's Name (ITEN).  If you have not heard of it, it's a mainly fan-made skirmish system for doing Abnett-style Inquisitorial games in the 40K universe. I had the good fortune to nose my way into the process a few years ago and add some cool stuff to the 2nd ed. I know there is a 3rd ed. in the works, but we'll be using the 2nd ed. this morning.

Anyway, I dug through my extensive collection of minis suitable for building a warband for this, and decided on an Ordo Xenos Inquisitor and his band. This guy is a bit of a heretic, so he's willing to pal around with aliens to get the job done. Check them out!

Here's the band. 200 pts., 8 models.

Inquisitor Holger Geist (a Cobalt mini).

Ygori, his mutant henchmen.

Greskin, alien psyker (Blue Moon mini).

P'knoc, Kroot tracker.

Imperial Interdiction Team.

I'll stat the Interdiction Team up as Guardsmen with shotguns. The alien psyker will be made up using the standard psyker rules and profile. Ygori the mutant will be a standard Inquisitorial agent with some sort of minor special ability. I'll include the Kroot using the Strange Ally rules that allows one model from another list.

So yeah, ITEN makes for a great way to dust off the old (or not so old!) minis and get some gaming in!

Thanks for visiting!

--Scott

Hordes: Plastic Trollbloods

I've always sworn that if PP did the core Hordes forces in plastic, I'd go back and redo my Trollbloods in plastic. So after scoring a giftcard to my local FLGS (Phantom), I grabbed the Trollblood starter set and the new plastic Storm Troll light warbeast (also in plastic).

As this will be my third go-round with Trollbloods, I wanted to do something a little different with the flesh tones. So last night I did a test paint on the plastic Impaler. This mini-project will get me to 15 pts. and allow me to play in the upcoming campaign at the shop!

I used a Reaper 3-step Drow skin for his flesh tone!

Thanks for visiting!

--Scott

Reaper Post Apoc Mutant

I bought this guy a while back and then asked my friend Sky to sculpt a shirt onto him. Sky complied and did a bang-up job, and then the figure sat on my bench for months. Then today I painted him! 

That's the way it goes sometimes!  But this guy has Dark Heresy/Inquisitor written all over him.

Pictured here with a GW conversion I did for Dark Heresy.

Not sure if I'd use him as a PC or an NPC villain, but I will also definitely include him a in skirmish game warband.

Thanks for visiting!

--Scott

A Pair From Fading Suns

I've long been a fan of the Fading Suns RPG line.  Once released by Holistic, but now under the creative control of Red Brick, Fading Suns meshes elements from some of my favorite sci-fi universes. Take a dash of Dune and mix with a twist of Warhammer 40K, along with some truly unique aspects, and you have a rich compelling universe to adventure in.

That's Fading Suns. More than a decade ago, when the property was still actively controlled by Holistic, they did a small but fine run of 28mm miniatures for the game.  They even did pre-painted versions. But I went for the unpainted ones and painted them up myself.

Thanks to some holiday time off the last few days, I took some bench time to re-paint and re-base my Vorox alien from the Fading Suns background. This model marks one of the best 28mm scale four-armed aliens in my collection. I wish Holistic had done more when they had the chance. Pictured with him is a fine star-faring noble adventurer, also from the Fading Suns line.

Pictured with a Foundry 2000 AD cyborg. 

I've been working on some sci-fi RPG rules mixing aspects of FUDGE and Fate, and writing rules for multi-limbed races that are fair and balanced is not easy!  I settled on allowing a player running a multi-limbed creature the option to make two attacks at -1 each should he choose. He can still make just one normal attack if he likes. We'll see how it works.

Of course, gaming aside, we cannot ignore the calendar, so Happy Christmas to all my readers who celebrate the holiday!  I hope you find plenty of gaming goodies under your Christmas Trees, and perhaps give some games as gifts yourselves!

Thanks for visiting!

--Scott

The 5th Chaos Cultist Is Done

I finished the 5th Chaos Cultist from the GW toy box. Can't stress too much what a sweet little boxed set this is for $10!

I used these guys in a game last night! They make excellent RPG villains for Inquisitor-based games.

Thanks for visiting!

--Scott

Warhammer 40K: A Fourth Cultist

Finished another of the 5 cultists from the 40K toy-box I picked up a few weeks ago. I may have a chance to use these guys in a game this weekend. We shall see!

Thanks for visiting!

--Scott

Nobody Asked Me, But...

Being an occasional feature where I discuss a bit of this and that.

• We saw The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey over the weekend, and I was really gobsmacked by how amazing it was!  Mr. Jackson and his crew pulled it off again! I loved every minute!
• We played a small game of GW's Hobbit strategy battle game over the weekend. Great stuff!  We ran four Dwarves against a horde of goblins and warg riders and lost, but had a blast doing so!
• I am currently following the progress of an amazing RPG Kickstarter, Fate Core.  Fred Hicks at Evil Hat Games has caught lightning in a bottle with this one, and the Fate RPG fans (myself included) are coming through with the support. In the end we'll have an amazing hardcover RPG suitable for use with nearly any genre!
• Been re-reading my JLA/Avengers crossover trade paperback lately and marveling at how Busiek and Perez managed to pull it off so beautifully. Other comics I've dusted off an read of late include: Steve Ditko Collection v. 2 (with all of the great LSH and Starman stories), Dark Horse's recently King Conan re-telling of the classic Phoenix on the Sword written by Tim Truman and drawn by Tomas Giorello, and my X-Men Hidden Years v. 1 by Byrne and Palmer.
• If you're looking for great maps of Middle-earth, check out Karen Wynn Fonstad's The Atlas of Middle-earth (revised ed.).  Brilliant cartography that will inform your reading and gaming of Tolkien.
• After playing a great session two weeks ago, our Shadows of Mumbai Shadowrun campaign goes on break until after the new year. We had one dramatic character death in the last session--a story-driven one decided on by one of the players. So we lose a ninja-type and gain an AI--not too bad! 

Later this week I may complete Thorin's Company, or move on to something else.  Not sure yet!  

Thanks for visiting!

--Scott

The Hobbit: Balin

Finished Balin this morning!  The event last night was a blast! Someone had an app loaded onto a computer where you could enter your real name and it would give you a Hobbit name.  Mine was Lotho Bumbleroot!

We had some enthusiastic players, and the Dwarves and Bilbo fought their way to freedom, suffering the loss of the redoubtable Dwalin in the process!

Thanks for visiting! 

--Scott