Thursday, March 28, 2013

Cheap and Easy Space Game Mat???


   
 Found a bunch of pictures from the Hubble telescope site. Science! Next, I went to a vinyl banner site, Banners on the Cheap, and picked out one that would look good on a 3 foot by 3 foot square.



It is in the mail, now, so I will report back with pictures when it shows up. The website even has a gaming section for printing your own role-playing mats. From my research of other bloggers, players have even used dry-erase markers on them since they are made of vinyl. Handy dandy, Mandy!

If the mat is nice then this opens up the Pandora's Box of gaming tables. I could....
1) Print a Blood Bowl pitch
2) Print streets for an urban table of Infinity or 40k
3) Print an ocean mat for Dystopian Wars
4) Print costumes dungeons for role-playing

Oh, the potential. I hope that the image that I selected is not of too high a quality, so the details don't get washed out with the brightness. We shall see, readers, we shall see.

Class dismissed.

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

FFG X-Wing Ship Repaints: Revenge of the Painter






     Got 2 games of FFG's X-Wing Minatures today. Two buddies of mine opened up the Pandora's Box of painting X-Wing ships. I washed the X-Wings with GW Nuln Oil. I washed all of my Imperials with GW Blue wash to make them blue. I repainted the Firespray and used a sponge with Vallejo Grey-Black and GW Silver for battle damage. Finally, I painted engines on all of the ships.

The far left is a stock X-Wing, where the two on the right have been washed.

 

       I really cannot give this game enough praise. It is very fun and captures the feel of the Star Wars universe. Don't download the Android Star Wars dice app because it is rubbish for $4.99. I do like hearing Admiral Ackbar yell "It's a trap!" every time I go to roll dice with the Rebel sound pack though.....

     The games 2 strong points are the maneuvering and character combos. You have to really thing through your turns, especially with the activation order and bumping into other ships, which causes you to lose your action and make you unable to shoot what you bumped. The character combo is the list creation process. There are some really fun combos to be made by combining character abilities with weapon upgrades. It makes the game very fresh, but not in a sense that make sit unbalanced or broken.

 I wanted my TIEs to be blue!!


Sunday, March 3, 2013

Bolt Action - Sikh (British) Army

     I am following my Flames of War decision of playing Indian Sikhs in Warlord's Bolt Action, a 28mm WW2 system. I find the Sikhs' look unique on the tabletop, and I admire their religion's goal of fighting oppression and injustice. Their mission explains their willingness to volunteer for military service in WW2 even though The Sikhs couldn't stand by and let innocents be killed. Amazing in my eyes.


     Sikhs can be found in almost every battlefield of WW2. A Sikh RAF pilot even took part in the Battle of Britain. This rich history will make it possible for me to field my army in Africa, Italy, or Asia.

     The picture above shows some Sikh in Monte Cassino at the Gustav Line, which they played a role in. My game group and I are forming our forces around this encounter. Thus, I will be running Sikh foot soldiers backed up by Canadian Army (Sherman tank).

     Warlord makes a batch of Sikh heads, which I am placing on my British infantrymen. Here is my first assembled figure that I will experiment with for a paint scheme.

     The Sikhs were famous for the courage on the battlefield.


     I am intrigued how this soldier has camo-netting over his dastar (turban).






















Sunday, February 3, 2013

Warriors of Chaos: New Book, First Thoughts

     Picked up the new Warriors of Chaos army book for WHFB. Here are my initial thoughts since this has been my main army since the start of 8th edition.

     The Marks of Chaos have all been redone. A hero/lord must have the same mark as the unit it joins. This ends the era of min/maxing marks for the most part, but I welcome the change.

Slaneesh - Auto-pass any Fear, Terror, or Panic test.
Tzeentch - Gain a 6+ ward save or improve the existing one by +1.
Khorne - Model has frenzy.
Nurgle - Enemy models have -1 to hit you in close combat.

     Right away, Nurgle seems to be the most interesting mark and good synergy with Chaos Warriors since hitting them on 5s, having 3+ armor, 6+ parry, then possibly Regeneration from the Nurgle lore seems nasty. The Nurgle lore can also further lower enemy toughness and WS, so I am seeing connections there.

     As much as it pains me to admit, Tzeentch magic is terrible now. If you hit a unit with magic with Warpflame property (all of the spells), and the enemy unit passes a toughness test, they can gain Regeneration (6+) or improve their existing regen by +1. If they fail, D3 enemy models take hits with no armor save.
      There aren't any indications that Warpflame is a flaming attack beyond fluff and the spell names. Thus, I expect your enemy to be recieving lost of regens, especially against armies like Ogres. Luckily, Tzeentch sorcerers can take Lore of Metal instead. Tzeentch approves of turning your enemies to gold, yes?
      A single great weapon Khorne Marauder now costs 11 points. Gone are the days of 50 lumberjacks chopping down the enemy. This was an expected change. I am now looking at possibly running small squads, maybe 20 man with flails, to back up a Chaos Warrior block.
      All of the monsters are really playable except the Slaughterbrute, which is ho-hum in its rules. Hellcannons surprisgingly got better. They now have a 5+ ward save and all of their attacks are magical (shooting, close combat, and stomps). Trolls lost their magical vomit, so I will no longer chunder rainbow puke on ethereal models. Throgg is beautiful in both his model and rules, but not his price ($58). He is worth it, though.
     More to come, but this is just a snapshot from my first night of reading. Overall, the army is very different, but more balanced and flavorful. There are a variety of options to choose from.
 
 
 
 

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Converted Sammael Jetbike and Black Knights - Space Sharks Style

Time to update my Space Sharks for the new codex! I already have the army painted once, so I am going back to make changes, weapon swaps, and new additions.

Sammael here is a Dark Vegeance biker with the wheels and bolters chopped off. Replaced the front with a Dark Eldar Raider prow. The back is a chaos vehicle thingy-ma-bob with a random Imperial Guard tank main weapon as the engine.









Deathwing Knights seem to be the go-to for close combat. It also helps that they are cheaper than regular TH/SS guys, with some added juicy rules. I rarely fired any weapons with my beatstick command squad in the old book anyway, so the no ranged on the knights doesn't phase me.





Scouts need missile launchers to hold my objectives as the big boys play in the enemy deployment.




Black Knight bikers do plasma better than Ravenwing ones. Gotta have some of those. These just have their bolters cut off and replaced with Plasma Pistols. A head swap from Maxmini Steam Knight heads.




Techmarines can provide cool wargear options. Plus, I love them. Here is my take a on a Conversion Beamer, which will be my Servo-Harness upgrade in Dark Angels.




Plasma Cutter, Flamer, and 2 servo-arms. I guess he just melees with the huge gun?




Scouts can't take shotguns, so time to make more snipers from Ork boss poles.




Autocannon Dreads are finally in the book. Sign me up. This is a missile launcher with a chopped up Imperial Guard autocannon turret chopped up (seeing a theme here?).







Monday, January 14, 2013

Random Ork Conversions and Battleshots

Looted Wagon with Boomgun dubbed the "Cookie Monster."


Gorken Morkann holds the line

Kommandos sneak onto an unoccupied Sky-shield of a Flying Circus demons player. Trollolololo

My bud's Chaos

Ton'eee Stork fighting a Blood Thirster. He held for 2 turns but died.

Grab the objective, boyz!

Orky Broadside

Orky Crisis Suit







Saturday, January 5, 2013

Krump Kroozer - Battlewagon Rolling Out!


I finally painted this battlewagon up. It was my first ork conversion, too!. Painting it was a blast and easy since I mainly just sprayed red and then went over all the edges with Boltgun paint.

 
While painting orks, I find that there is a zen between painting terribly and painting orky.


The tracks are from a Gundam Gun Tank toy that I sacrificed to Gork and Mork.

Git's eye view....