Shadow War: Armageddon - Ratling Sniper (by Kev Adams)

A short-statured ratling sniper draws bead on a renegade noble.

 

Nearly two years ago, I attended the excellent Bring Out Your Lead event, hosted at Foundry. One of the many attractions was to have Kev Adams sculpt a new face on a model in exchange for a charitable donation. I was wholly underprepared, but managed to find an Imperial Guard ratling. I tasked Kev with sculpting my face on the wee little chap. I am 6' 4" (193cm), so a diminutive ratling seemed rather ludicrous and therefore highly appropriate!

The terrifying power of the administration



I have always loved the character of the Rogue Trader adventurers range, and I really enjoy looking for suitable non-comms and civilians to populate my collection.

 

I was very much excited when it emerged at BOYL'15 that Foundry had put a set of old unreleased Citadel Rogue Trader figures into production. I immediately snaffled some on the day. If you want to get hold of a set yourself, you need look no further than the Foundry website!

 

My favourite conceptually from the set is the scribe / member of the Adeptus Administratum. If you follow the Eldritch Epistles blog, you'll be aware that the figure is a very close match to one of the illustrations from the Rogue Trader blog.

 

The original slotta casting. Pic from Eldritch Epistles.

 

Unfortunately, the pose on the sculpt is rather oddly disco, with its pointing finger and toe-tapping lead foot. That's not to say you can't make a very nice job of the paint and end up with a good looking figure (see Sho3box and Leadplague). I just wanted to make mine a little less obtrusive:

 

 

 

Enter House Ulanti

Earlier, I took the opportunity to take some better photos of my winning entry into the BOYL 15 painting competition from the weekend.

I've showcased all the figures previously - they comprise Lord Greiss, Lady Greiss, bodyuard Eduardo Murat, Professor Barossus and Lope, the household huntsman. Although the models were linked through a common colour scheme, I wanted to tie them together with a display base. I decided on a very simple narrative of Lord and Lady Greiss leaving a doorway, accompanied by retainers.

Enter House Ulanti.

Anarchy Reigns - My BOYL 2015 Experience

I spent most of my Friday, Saturday and Sunday of the weekend just gone attending events linked to the Oldhammer community’s ‘Bring Out Your Lead 2015’ event, hosted by Foundry in Newark.

The year’s event was the 3^rd year it has run, evolving from a small and informal gathering of folks, playing a handful of games in 2013, to a much larger informal gathering! The main thrust of the event is the playing and mutual admiration of Games Workshop’s games from the late 1980s and early 1990s, with figures from the same era or ethos. A dozen participation games were planned across the weekend, using rules as diverse as Warhammer 3^rd edition, Rogue Trader, Space Hulk, Mordheim and Blood Bowl, not to mention fantastic large-scale games using custom rules, such as Warhammer Ahoy and the Deathrace. There also seemed to be plenty of pick-up games taking place over the course of the weekend, including Space Crusade, Heroquest and Necromunda.

Friday

My weekend started pretty early on Friday morning when I collected Irish Oldhammerers Paul S (cheetor) and John (Just John) from East Midlands airport. We made the run up to Newark to drop off cases at hotels, before heading back down to Warhammer World for a pre-BOYL meet up and game of Inquisimunda. After food and a good natter with Aussie traveller James (Captain Crooks), we ended up playing an entertaining 9-player game with two factions (radical and slightly less radical) competing to activate / destroy a teleport homer device. My Ordo Malleus crew teamed up with Graham (Greater Harlequin) and his genestealer cult, John with Space Santa plus little helpers and Chris (antipixi) with his ash waste nomads. Facing us down were Gadge with his rogue trader, Colin (Whiskey Priest) with an inquisitor, Paul (cheetor) with another inquisitor and JB (Asslessman) with his Sensei.

 

The lay of the land. Teleport homer located at the top of the tower.

Burnin' and Lootin' - BOYL Rioters

With Bring Out Your Lead 2015 just around the corner, I needed to make the final push and complete the figures I need for my game 'Anarchy in the UH'. The game is based on Space Hulk, with rioters taking the role of the hordes of genestealers. I'm sure you can imagine that a rampaging mass of Necromundan civilians and underhivers, high on spook, frenzon and whatever else, would be a terrifying sight.

Sadly, there aren't many sci-fi non-combatants, and precisely zero ranges of sci-fi rioters. I figured that for the purposes of my game, modern rioters would suffice - players' focus will be on ensuring their gangs (Terminator squads) survive.

I ended up plumping for the Offensive Miniatures rioting mob. An investment of £50 landed me with 39 rioters, plus a dog (and a pair of wheelie bins). The figures aren't perfect (not sci-fi, a touch small), but they have the major advantage of being cheap. They also perform the required function of looking like a suitable horde of angry civilians.

The mob runs riot through the port, catching an unfortunate squad of law-enforcers!

Coming to the BOYL - the Importance of Playtesting

Yesterday, my good friend Graham was kind enough to not only host me at his place for a day of gaming, but also willing to playtest the game I'll be running at 'Bring Out Your Lead' in a few weeks time at Wargames Foundry.

The game is designed to use the compact 1st edition Space Hulk rules mechanics, with a shift of setting to Necromunda. 4 'escort' players will attempt to safely usher a VIP to safety and up and out of the Underhive. In the meantime 1-2 players will control rampaging mobs of rioters, high on spook or other nefarious narcotics. Hopefully it's apparent enough that the 'escorts' will play as Space Marine terminator squads, while the 'rioters' will play as genestealers.

So, with my draft modified rules in hand, and the playing area set up, we set about giving the game a throrough run through.

Graham deliberates on the best course of action in the first turn.

Building the Underhive - Part 3 (market day)

It is highly possible that you're fed up of seeing yet more terrain. If I'm honest, I'm got a bit of terrain fatigue myself! But deadlines don't move, and terrain has to be finished for my BOYL game. On the plus side, I'm still making pretty good progress, and last night managed to paint up half of my market.

Building the Underhive - Part 2

My last post was all about the terrain I'm building for a game at 'Bring Out Your Lead' at the start of August. If you liked that, then great, here's more of the same (if you didn't, tough!).

With more to make and paint by the deadline than I've ever attempted previously, I've written myself a little programme, with specific tasks allocated to specific days / evenings. If I stick to my programme, then I should complete everything required for BOYL with two spare contingency evenings. So far, it's going well, and over the last week, I've completed more of the required terrain.

Building the Underhive - Preparing for BOYL '15

In spite of playing wargames since the late 1980s, I've never actually had a decent set of terrain. Most of my gaming hasn't been at home; either at friend's houses, events or wargaming stores; so I've never needed it before.

All that changed when I decided I'd run a game at 'Bring Out Your Lead '15', the third annual Oldhammer event, being run at Wargames Foundry at the end of July / start of August.