Battletech

So it looks like I will by playing Battletech once again. It has been about fifteen years since I played this awesome game but I am looking forward to it. I have a vague memory of the rules. Some of the guys I work with had a demo of it last Friday and are seriously considering starting to play. That would be great as it is always handier to play after work rather than going to a club.I have also found a shop that is selling the battletech miniatures by weight. The selection is huge but I really don't know half of the mechs. I have to read up a little before I purchase... I have noticed though that a lot of the models are terrible. It looks a lot like something that I would sculpt myself. They are incredibly inspired by the design ethics of the eighties. They are bulky, square and far from sleek fighting machines. The cartoon transformers even looked better... though the mechs are pretty similar in a lot of ways. I wonder if a lot of them were redesigned with a more modern feel they would be awesome. The Stinger on the right here is one of the best mechs in terms of its looks. I find that the lighter the mech the better it looks. Once they start to get heavy then they begin to just become bulky.

Friday Showcase - Engineer

So I missed last Friday... I actually didn't have much to show to be honest.
A lot of the Dwarves I have left are in a state of semi completion. I have been painting Dwarves for far too long and it really is the army where I have a lot of half started projects and ideas that I never developed further. I have for instance a large amount of Iron Breakers painted but I never managed to complete all the custom shields for them that I wanted. Hopefully someday I can sit down and get a lot of these projects finished. I would have a fairly monstrous army then! I think I have everything for the Dwarf army, often in multiple copies and this is froma few editions of the miniatures too. This guy like the Ork from yesterday has been sitting on my desk for quite some while. I don't know when I built him, probably around this time last year or maybe a little later. I had wanted him to represent an Engineer but as I look at him now if is by far more of a standard crewman than anything else. I guess I needed some more embellishment to really get him to stand out as a character. The paint job was nice and quick. I again spent some time getting the flesh tones right. I didn't do anything fancy I just wanted him to fit in well with the other dwarves I have done. In fact this guy has inspired me to get some mroe progress made on the Dwarves especially the Bugmans Rangers I bought recently to bring that regiment up to a full compliment of forty rangers!

Painting a checked design

I have had this one Ork sitting on my painting table for months. I don't know why I constructed him but maybe I was bored. Anyway with all the rumours of 40k getting a reboot and this time it is being made a more tactical game I thought why not get this fellow done! I wanted to experiment and raise the bar a little. My Orks are again not the most amazing in terms of the paint jobs they sport. I wanted to get a better Bad Moonz feeling for them and so I went with adding a checked design in yellow and black to some appropriate areas. I have seen this done on a few of the models that GW show and I tried to copy the faded dirty style. Adding the pattern was pretty simple. I just painted on a grid with a fine brush and then filled in the squares with black. The yellow had been laid down as a basecoat. With the squares blocked in I could fix and mistakes with a little yellow. I didn't want them to be overly accurate either, thats not how an Ork would have them. I then gave a thinned down wash of GW Badab Black. This fades the design out and takes off the brightness of the yellow. I then edge the areas in mithril silver. Then I use some artists pigments to rust and darken the areas even more. Simply brushing these into the cracks and crevasses of the model helps a lot. The black (soot) powder works a charm. The rust then gives a good used feel to the areas where there is metal underneath. This really fades the area down and blends it into the surrounding area better rather than having a stark design. I haven't worked it our fully myself yet but I do intend to do some more Orks over the coming few weeks and I will check to see if I can make some improvements.

Turn the page

I have been eyeing this model since it was released. I don't know why but the idea of carrying a giant prayer book around the battlefield is pretty awesome. I guess the next evolution of this is carrying a big Organ... well the battle engine thing which I am guessing is an organ. I managed to snap this up cheap on ebay and while listening to podcasts from the Knights of the Night over the last few days I painted him. One of the strangest things to do here was to get the pose correct. I tried fitting the parts together but it really didn't want to work. I finally resorted to checking the picture online and then it finally made some sense! I had thought that the guy was carrying the book and facing towards the priest rather than facing away. Once that was figured out he went together easily.

The painting was pretty simple. I had to match the style of my choir who were painted many moons ago. This was nice as they were not painted to the highest standard! I concentrated on getting the skin tone right for the book carrier. I wanted to get more of a reddened look to his face to show his exertions in carrying the book. That didn't work out as I had intended. Still I know what I did wrong and I will try to correct it on the next model. The book had some lettering done, I should have paid more attention to this and made it better. It came out fine but I still think I can do better. I should have put the effect name on the top of the page but I thought of it by the time I was finished pretty much and then stuck it onto the bottom. I just need to put some varnish on the base for the water effect and then all is done!

Trolls or Spawn or Ogres?

I mixed too much greenstuff yesterday and I had to do something with it. As eager as I am to play with my Warhammer Fantasy army I am not so eager to apint it. I did use the greenstuff to do some fur on one of my Chaos Spawn/Ogres/Trolls. I still haven't decided exactly what these will end up as. I guess as Trolls. I want them to look like Marauders that have mutated into Trolls rather than as beasts in and of themselves.

The fur is simple enough to do even though I haven't done it in about a year I guess. Its like riding a bicycle... It is a little time consuming though and it can take about forty minutes to do fur like I have it here. One thing I forgot is that using a lot of greenstuff makes it easier to have strong texture. I have quite a few more Marauders to put cloaks on so maybe I should take them out and start. Hmmm I don't know. If I sculpt them I have to paint them there is no escaping that. If I leave them on the sprues I can ignore the fact I have loads of them waiting for at least a little longer.

Standard Bearer and Officer

I got these guys finished a few weeks ago before the Steamroller tournament. I forgot to post up a picture of them however! So here they are finally done. These have been sitting for a while with just the base colours done. It didn't take me long to sit and get them finished thankfully as I was in a rush to have everything I needed 100% done. I am wondering now if I should buy a second unit and attachement to use with Epic Severius as a theme force. These guys are some of my favourite in Warmachine. They epitomise the expendable grunt for me. I have been thinking that I have everything from Escalation done too now! That would be an awesome achievement and one that I wasn't striving for.

Selective Stripping

So I have started work on the Avatar. However I haven't been as succesful with my airbrushing as I normally manage. This model is cursed by the way. I am fully sure that I will lose it in every game on the first turn. My first fail is documented here. So I undercoated the shield and I somehow completely swamped the inner area of it without noticing. I of course then left it to dry so now I have a problem. So as the model is metal I decided to strip it. I hadn't really managed a good even coat of white as you can see in the picture but I was eager to see if I could control the process enough to use it elsewhere on the main body of the Avatar as I had also had some problems there.

So I took out a handy bottle of nail varnish remover. Girlfriends are handy for somethings... and applied it to the shield only in the places that I wanted stripped. This Ebelin stuff is the best I have found for this type of work. I didn't get a good photograph of the bottle but under the lid you might be able to make out a cup. Depressing this cup causes the liquid to come up and fill it. This is perfect as you can then dip your brushes in as you would for a paint pot. Don't let your girlfriend see you doing this however as you will be in trouble. At least this time I managed that. This stuff is safe to use with your normal brushes. I still advise using an old one though. One of the great things to see is how much paint comes off the brush when you dip it for the first time. Anyway I brushed this over the painted area I wanted stripped a number of times, letting it soak in deep. It will evaporate rather quickly but thats okay as it will still be present in the lower layers.

So once you have this on in a few coats you can begin to lift the paint off. In my case it had already lifted off pretty well in places. The white came off easy but I guess that was due to the hairspray layer under it (which clogs detail like hell). With a tooth pick I was able to easily clean all the red/brown paint layer off and to have the centre of the shield looks as good as new again within a few moments. Now I just need to try this on the Avatar himself. Fingers crossed.

Further Success

So push moulding is pretty awesome. I have had a khorne symbol mould ready for a while but I never used it. Following on from last weeks fun with the Templeguard shields I decided to use it. Again I applied some olive oil to lubricate the mould. I don't know it this is needed but I don't want to find out that it is by having a mould ruined before I have really gotten much use out of it. This mould is much smaller in volume than the shield and I had far too much green stuff mixed. Unpreturbed I put the stuff in with a lot of over spill. After a day drying I was able to remove it easily. I had to trim a lot off around the edges which with the odd angles present wasn't the easiest job. The piece in the middle, the nose I guess, is still there just to illustrate this. However I can now go ahead with my plan of using this symbol on some armour for Chaos Ogres... well if I ever get back to that project.

What colour is darkness?

I don't paint with black. AT least as often as possible I avoid using it. With this model I wanted to do something different. I started with a complete black undercoat and from there I built up some highlights. There are no glazes or washes here just pure paint. I also tried to keep him in a monochrome style. So I used Vajello Field Gray mixed with black for all the clothes. This is a deceptive colour and you will have seen it before on my Dystopian Wars ships. It is green but there is a certain grey quality in it too. Once I started the slow build up from black this grey became very apparent. It wasn't until I was almost finished that the green peeked through. This shows up best in the 'lion cloth'. I am not sure really what it should be called, its lion cloth like at least. The sleeves you see are the same exact mix with a single dot of bleached bone added. This changed the colour very much back towards the grey and offers a subtle contrast. It is still a suprisingly dark colour despite the picture showing it lighter than it is. The leather I highlighted with GW Scorched Brown. Highlighting black with an already really dark (but rich) colour meant I was never going to get much of an effect. Thats fine as I wanted it to be subtle. You can make out the colour shift on the gloves, boots and the cowl. This colour is really dark however and I am not sure if I would use it much more. It is probably better to stick with Scorched Brown as the base colour for a dark leather. I kept the metal as dark as possible. The armour plate edges got some definition and I gave a drybrush of a very dark mix of GW Boltgun Metal and GW Chaos Black over the rest of the metal. For some stronger definition I then picked out some of the higher edges. All in all the model was easy to paint. I made a lot of mistakes as I haven't been painting to a high standard recently. However for the few hours this guy took it was worth it. Once I get stuck into my Khador I intend going to back to as high a standard as I can manage with my painting. Wish me luck...

I am not sure how good Gorman de Wulfe is in the game. I have seen him used quite a lot so if that is an indication of him being good I am doing fine! One my my regular opponents is Jan from the Miniwar Hamburg Club and he uses Cygnar. Gorman's ability to drop a cloud down will be of great benefit. I have also got a few invites to other clubs in the city following on from my recent Steamroller fun. So it is always good to come prepared! Combining this cloud with five more from the High Reclaimer is awesome.

Double Trouble

So I got the second Redeemer finished! I have only used a Redeemer twice before and I liked him a lot, especially combined with the Choir. Now with a 'brother' I can have twice the fun. I kept the paint scheme the same as I liked how the first turned out. I did have some problems though as I didn't fix the pigment on the first one before I played a game. Now there is pigment all over the model. It doesn't ruin it but it does change the stark white to a rather dirty colour. Maybe it is hard to pick up on this picture.

I will make sure to have this guy varnished before dragging him onto a tabletop. Having two of them really makes me want to get Kreoss out onto the table to play with. I really can't see how these guys can be anything but full of awesome with Kreoss's feat. Wwith pretty much everything on its ass they can't miss. Thats a lot of high power hits coming in in one turn! I have one 'jack left to paint now. The dreaded Avatar... he is just the unluckiest model I have ever had to work with, well maybe with the exception of the Dreadstone Blight. Thats thing is also pretty unlucky. Anyway while airbrushing the Avatar tonight my airbrush didn't want to behave. I have no idea why it just does that sometimes. So having attempted to get a white coat on evenly over the model I got too much paint in the filigree in some places. I am going to have to find a way to strip off some of the paint somehow. Anyone got any ideas how?

The Wicked Witch

I am trying to reach a crescendo with my Hunter: the Vigil posts as I am getting very close to running the game now. I still don't have a massive story arc but as I intend to play in a more sandbox style that isn't a huge hinderance.I will present a number of leads that the characters can independently pick up on and I will give them some direct events that they can react to if they wish. So really it depends on what takes the players fancy once we satrt. I have a number of monsters in development and we can use these easily in sequence. I have also been considering recording the games... it might be nice to release them as a podcast. Though who knows, it isn't like we have expensive equipment.

The Mystery of Violence
With the discussion yesterday of Emmerson park I was trying to think about what might create such an area. This park was once filled with families playing, Now it is abandoned and considered almost a no go zone. I wasn't really sure what monster would do this, a ghost maybe. However thinking further I came up witht he idea of a Witch. Some of the mysteries presented in Witch Finders is that these powerful beings have a focus from which they derive their power, or source as it is termed in the book. Some of these include Passion and Disease. Some of the more powerful ones are Time and Space. What if a Witch discovered Violence as a mystery? In my mind this could easily account for a park that became a center of violence when gang trouble broke out. Maybe that trouble only broke out due to the tender ministrations of a Witch.

In keeping with the other mysteries I want to make a spell list but I am pretty stuck for inspiration. I know what I want to have happen but I don't really know how it happens. I am really stuck on the Fury spell, anyone else have ideas?

• Anger (*)
  Everyone gets annoyed but only a few people act upon it. With a subtle push the Witch can make these actions come to the surface.
  Cost: None
  Action: Instant
  Duration: Scene
  Range: Sensory
  Dice Pool: Manipulation + Empathy + Gnosis
  The Witch causes the victim to become angry. This anger is not specifically directed at anything in particular. A perfectly calm person will become agitated but not know why whereas an already angry person will become a raging bull! This spell simply pushes the victim gently towards a violent reaction. A police officer making an arrest might simply be somewhat more forceful throwing the criminal to the ground before hand cuffing her. A computer programmer tackling a difficult problem might suddenly smash his keyboard or if enraged enough already follow through on his threat of tossing the PC out of the window.
  When the victim lashes out due to the rage the Witch gains Source.
• Hatred (**)
  The road to true hatred of something is a long one. A lot of people are held in check by society, religion and upbringing. The Witch is able to temporarily help someone along this benighted path.
  Cost: None
  Action: Instant
  Duration: Scene
  Range: Sensory
  Dice Pool: Manipulation + Persuasion + Gnosis
  The Witch is able to increase the natural feelings that somebody has towards someone or someones that they don't like. Instead of a low level dislike this suddenly becomes a complete hatred. The more people that the Witch tries to force the victim to hate the more disperesed the feeling becomes. For instance if the Witch tries to make the victim hate all Chinese people then she may only effect a slight strengthening of the current dislike. However if the Witch narrows the group to something like the Police then it will be more effective. The spell is most effective against a single person. When the victim causes physical harm to the specified target the Witch gains Source.
  
• Fury(***)
  Cost: Source
  Action: Instant
  Duration: A number of rounds equal to the successes scored
  Range: Sensory
  Dice Pool: Manipulation + Persuasion + Gnosis
• Rage(****)
  In a tense situation anger quickly comes to the surface. A Witch can detect and manipulate this turning friend against friend.
  Cost: Source
  Action: Contested
  Duration: One Round
  Range: Sensory
  Dice Pool: Manipulation + Persuasion + Gnosis
  The Witch makes a contested roll against both targets. She splits her dice pool in half using each half against one of the opponents. If both are beaten by the Witch having more successes then they will direct their next attack against the other.In the case that only one is defeated then only they will make the attack.
• Frenzy(*****)
  Some areas have always had a bad reputation but some areas really have the worst. In the case of this spell a Witch creates a zone of utter hatred and protects himself at the same time.
  Cost: SourceAction: Extended Duration: Scene
  Range: Area
  Dice Pool: Resolve + Manipulation + Gnosis
  The casting of this spell is an extended action that requires a total of 12 successes. Each roll is equal to half an hour. A Witch may only cast this spell in a place where he has lived for three months. The Witch creates a zone of agression. This zone must have defined physical bondaries. It can occupy an area up to three acres maximum. The Witch may extend this to double the area by expending a willpower point during the casting. Anyone entering the zone is immediately effected by the Hatred spell as described above. The target of this effect is anyone else within sensory range. The effect ends once the affected person leaves the area.
  While within the zone victims may not attack the Witch directly. Instead their violent tendencies are directed at anyone else within sensory range. Victims may make an opposed roll to resist this effect.
  The Witch gains no Source as a result of these actions.
  

A Hunters Paradise?

Emmerson park is one of seven parks in the Lincolnwood area. It is also one of the most notorious. The rise in gang warfare over the last five years rendered the park a no go zone. Recently it has developed a reputation of fear. People that do frequent the area report an uncomfortableness in the air. It is so strong that even the gangs don't frequent the area anymore, this hasn't encouraged the nearby residents to return however. Stories are told of the now overgrown and ill tended place. Certain occurences at night time and in some cases apparitions are discussed in whispers in the local bars. The offical description for this park has never been changed to reflect its new reputation.

History of the Park:
In 1931, the Lincoln Park Commission created Emmerson Park, the last of the district's seven neighborhood parks. The population of the West Ridge neighborhood had grown from 7,500 residents in 1920 to 40,000 residents ten years later, and there were few public parks in the area. The park commission acquired a two-acre parcel from the Chicago Town and Tennis Club, adjacent to the Chicago Elk Club. Although the new park was quite small, it was improved as a lovely green space with a wading pool, a children's playground, tennis courts, gardens, and a comfort station. In 1934, the Lincoln Park Commission was consolidated into the Chicago Park District. The Park District remodeled Emmerson Park comfort station into a recreation center in 1961.

Emmerson Park honors Louis L. Emmerson (1863-1941), who was Governor of Illinois during the park's creation. Having served as Secretary of State for three terms beginning in 1916, Emmerson was elected Governor in 1928 and remained in office until 1933.

In 2010 four bodies were found in the park. All four belonged to teenage girls that had gone missing over the last two years in the Lincolnwood area. Each were buried in a shallow grave amongst the undergrowth near the centre of the small park. These were found by a dog and an elderly gentleman walking in the park. There was never an arrest following the finding of the bodies but the offical police statement is that the investigation is ongoing. There were rumours of some strange artefacts found on the bodies but nothing more than rumours reached the newspapers.

The Surrounds:
The apartments in the north eastern corner of the park have been abandoned since 2001. They are fenced off for safety. They are in a rather depalidated state. The church in the north western corner is still open. However the congregation has dwindled and only a few elderly members visit services regularly. The large car parking space is now without working lights in the evening and in many places it is over grown with grass and weeds. Further out there are a lot of apartment buildings. These are also in an advanced state of disrepair but a fair few of them are still occupied.

Menoth, my progress

So here is a quick slideshow to show what exactly I have finished in my menite force. This has all been completed since January 1st so I am pretty happy with my progress. I am not finished yet but maybe it is time I turned my attention towards my Khador forces? I still have two unopened boxes of Troopers that need my attention and two 'jacks though. I wouldn't mind getting some mercenaries together too especially seeing that the Steelheads are getting some love in Wrath and that I would really like to be able to play them as a faction too. I have ruled out a Cryx force... too expensive at the moment. I wanted a Tier Four Goreshade list but well that has to wait.

I'm a believer!

So this week is a busy one it would seem for me! I made some good progress with my light 'jacks. Here is my Devout! He used to be good in MKI but I am not so sure now. The ability to vlock a single shot is still nice. It helps a lot against those pesky Pistol Wraiths. It also benefits the Harbinger immensely as otherwise she gets destroyed really quickly. However the defensive strike while good is not as good as before. It is a nice attack but it doesn't have the penalties it inflicted before which were awesome. This guy is also expensive at 5 points. I am not sure if he really is worth that much... I was wondering if this guy has a focus on him can he boost the defensive strike? That would be interesting at least. I am also wondering if it is possible to use the defensive strike against a counter charging model? So I move something up to tempt the counter charger into reach of the Devout and then 'whack' I smash him with an unexpected attack. At least then I can think of some interesting situations.

Here you can see how I am using the more decorative base than usual. I like that the model is interacting with the base. Generally we just see the models standing on the base but with the adjustable pose I was able to make it look like he was stepping over something. I doubt that the plank can actually hold his weight but hey it isn't supposed to be bound by reality. The standard running pose on this 'jack is terrible. It reminds me of a road runner cartoon, in fact I think it is worse. The roadrunner seemed to move only from the knees down just like the running devout. Thinking about it at least the road runner leaned forwards for balance. I am hoping the Dervish has a better pose... I can't remember. Anyway this 'jack benefits from being in a slightly more static pose. I guess someone out there has managed a nice running stance. I would love to see it. I made my other Devout in a similar stance. Sadly I don't have a picture here for reference but I am pretty sure thats what I did.

Push moulding, success

So I have had some success with push moulding. I wanted to be able to decorate my bases with some menite themed extras so when it came to painting my Temple Guard I knew I wanted some of their shields. So rather than forking out for them from the webstore I decided to try and make a greenstuff version. It turned out to be pretty simple. The mould I put into a GW base just so that I wouldn't lose it to easily on the cluttered painting desk. It also helps give some rigidity to the green stuff when making the mould. It is pretty easy to press too deeply into the putty and then you have a fragile mould.

Once that was dry I was able to use a little bit of oil as a lubricant and then I simply pressed the green stuff into the mould with a good bit of force. I did manage to trap an air bubble as you can see near the centre of the shield. It is no big deal... it can represent battle damage afterall. The shield also seems to have picked up some more texture than I would have expected. I don't know how this will look once painted. Hopefully it won't really be noticable. It doesn't look bad this way either. So I think I should start working on some more difficult shapes soon!

• One tip is to make sure that you use excess greenstuff and have that lap over the side of the moulded shape. That makes it very easy to peel the shield out once all is dry.
• also don't use too much mould release as this can also cause bubbling (I noticed this on the second one I made).
  

I shall have my revenge!

So in my rush to get everything ready for last weekends Steamroller tournament I got my Revenger complete. This is my second though the first one is sitting in Ireland gathering dust at the moment. At least now I can take a group shot of my Prime stuff without an obvious ommission! Though now that I think about it I guess Severius and Kreoss need to be duplicated or collected from my home. I have been thinking about dedicating a week to just painting Warcasters. I would try to get one a day done... pretty tough if I want to get them done decently but doable I think. At least it would enable me to start playing with my favourite 'caster Severius.

So the Revenger didn't really come out the way I had planned. It was mainly due to the rush at the last minute. The rust hasn't really streaked that well, I will go back and paint on some streaks so it looks better. Especially on the upper armour. I wanted the front edge of the shield to have some heavy wear on it. I still can't manage that technique convincingly. I will maybe try it again with a few Orks over the weekend to really see what can be achieved. I will be starting my Khador force soon and I really want to have weathering down to a fine art before I work on the northern 'jacks. I really want those guys to look weather beaten.

I don't have that many more 'jacks to do for Menoth now. I have pretty much all of them painted at least once. Only the Dervish and the Templar are missing from my collection. I have duplicates of the Guardian, Crusader, Repenter, Revenger, Devout and Redeemer. Only the character 'jacks need to be done but I am not going to rush out to get them. They are a little pricey at least in comparison to the standard Warjacks.

Here is my old Revenger, painted in a much different style. This was the first Warmachine model I painted if I remember correctly. I painted it in a much more cream colour with a stronger shading than I do now. I also used purple as a secondary colour instead of red. I really didn't like how that worked out. I also painted some scroll work on him as I felt the armour plates were too empty. I guess it was a hangover from my GW days where every model is encrusted with detail. I quite like the simpicity of the models now and by keeping a very stark white as the main colour it shows this off a lot better.

Rolled over

Saturday was my first Steam Roller event. It was fun but it was tough, really tough. First of all I wasn't really expecting to have timed turns. These really change the game. I was panicked and tense every turn. I would quickly shuffle through my turn forgetting loads of stuff, especially to declare shieldwall on my Templeguard!I used the High Reclaimer and the Testament with pretty much the same list. The High Reclaimer still seems sub-par to me but I did like the Testament of Menoth much more. He managed two assassination runs, of which one worked out. I charged Karchev in the rear while sitting on twelve focus and didn't manage to damage him that much at all. Hitting on fours and boosting damage too. My assassination run against Deneghra was better and it luckily gave me the only win of the tournament. I had nothing at all left in my army so I hadn't much choice but to go for it.

I also managed to get my first game in against the Retribution of Scyrah. Damn those Elves! I thought that the High Reclaimers wall of smoke would protect me from any incoming shooting but no. Some strange eagle thing was able to see over it and allow all of the Myrmidions to shoot at me with impunity. It also led to me losing the game at the beginning of the second turn. Well the burned hand teaches best! My opponent was nice enough to play a second game which was much better fun. I didn't rely on the wall to stop shooting this time. I still lost but at least it was some fun. The Dawn Guard are tough.

So I look forward to the next chance I get at a Steam Roller event. The scenarios were fun and the timed turns added a lot of excitement.

The E Street Gang

It has been a while since I really planned some stuff for my Hunter: The Vigil game. I have been reading the sourcebook a lot at least and I have listened to the podcast from the Knights of the Night. This has mainly been to get me into a mood to prepare for a Chronicle and to learn the rules a little better. It will probably take me a few sessions before I have a good idea of how the rules work so any help that I can get beforehand would be good. They are playing a Tier Three or Two game while I intend to only play a Tier One game. That grounds the game in a more down to earth horror style. There maybe a possibility to expand the game into the second tier but I am not planning on that. At the moment I am still trying to think of who to invite to the game. As it is done with people from work I have a lot of available players however I only want to run with a small group. That means someone is going to be annoyed as they are left out...

I have been playing a few online games recently and from one of them I got the idea of having a more mundane threat present in my city. The area that my hunters will work in is also the territory of the E Street Gang. These will form a constant threat in the area and serve to anchor the game in some reality. They will be moving in on the players territory and there will be some conflict with another gang. I will be locating the characters in Lincoln Park in Chicago. The territory is an upand coming area quite prosperpous but bounded by rougher areas to the east and west (at least in my game). The ghouls I mentioned before will be located in the Rosehill Cemetery and they will be part of this gang. So while the gang poses a mundane threat they will be controlled by the monsters of the World of Darkness. I will actually use the gang as the first glimpse some of the players see that something is wrong. When a gang member thats been riddled with bullets simply gets up and walks away they will quickly figure out that something strange is at play.

A situation like this poses a good question to the Hunters who can kill Monsters with some justification. Can they act as vigilantes too? Are humans any less of a monster than the supernatural threats present in the city? If the players can't tell if a gang member is a ghoul, a vampire or a real flesh and blood human can they simply wade into a gunfight with them all guns blazing? Well I guess they would but at least it presents a moral challenge which is the stuff that makes the World of Darkness such a good setting. So what does this mean for our ghouls? Well I need to remake them a little. They will have a vampire overlord now and maybe some of his coterie.

Friday Showcase - Longbeards

I am not sure if I have previewed my Longbeards here before? I know I showed them as WIP while preparing for Gorey last year but I don't think I have them here copleted before. Anyway here they are finally done. As you can see I used standard dwarven warriors with great weapons. The only thing I did to differentiate them was to paint the beards white... they are veterans after all. These were done in a rush as usual but I think they came out fine. The dark red and the gold ties them into the rest of the army. The banner ties in well with the army Standard Bearer too. Te grudge pony is a nice little unit filler that takes up eight spaces. That really helps to get regiments up to the current trend of thirty to forty models! It also splits in half so that means I can easily deal with casualties. I have used it in about three regiments so far and it saves me a lot of money!

I have tried and tried to get some of the old metal models on ebay but to no avail. They sell for incredibly good prices, usually twenty go for about €60 - €70. Thats a little above my budget. I keep my eyes peeled though because they are awesome models and I would dearly love to get a regiment of them together. It would complete my classic dwarf collection. So if any of you readers have any spare please let me know. I would gladly take them off your hands!

The Guardian is done

Hello summer!If predictions prove correct then this may be my last post for three months... Seemingly the weather is set to split the rocks here in northern Germany. I have been informed I will be spending my time outside enjoying the heat, the park and various summer related activities. I won't be in my man cave hiding from that baleful eye that only wants to burn my skin! I really wonder sometimes what makes people crazy about the sun and the summer. I remember a lot of great summers in my childhood speant inside with a games board and two armies spread out before me. Now isn't that far better than lying on a beach or sitting in a park?

I finally managed to get the Guardian done. I love the way I manage to buy things in bulk and then have them sit on my painting desk for an absolute age before I do anything with them. I might add that I have already placed two further orders before I managed to get this model more than constructed. It seems my lead pile is determined to grow. The Guardian is a really different 'jack to paint. He is more ornate than any I have done before and is in keeping with some of the menites later character 'jacks rather than their original warjacks. I decided to keep the red to a minimum on this model to attempt to distinguish him as something different, maybe better? I wantd him to look less like a Line of Battle 'jack. I kept the rust and chips to a minimum too. This was more due to the fact that the hairspray method didn't really work here. Maybe I didn't cover him enough? I was afraid to fill the details if I sprayed him with a lot of hairspray. It isn't very controllable from its original container at least.

I also kept the banners white but I built their shades up using graveyard earth. It doesn't really make that much of a difference from the bleached bone shade I usually use but at least I know I made an effort to make them look different. I wasn't bothered to put menofixes on the banners as I really don't see myself using this 'jack much. I don't want to put a lot of effort into a model that will most likely reside at the back of my cabinet. The Guardian is nine points. Thats a lot especially considering what else is available for cheaper. I have a second Guardian and I would like to use a pair of them sometime however that really will be just for fun!