An old obsession ...

 ... Ogre!

I had the urge to play the venerable hex-and-counter sci-fi tank wargame at game night last week, so I brought my Classic Counters and two maps from the Designer's Edition: The original orange from the basic Ogre game, and the green from the GEV expansion. I also brought plenty of terrain overlays for when attacks accidentally or intentionally damage forest or town hexes.

Since it had been awhile since we'd played, I thought we would warm up with a destroy the command post game using the original rules. With three of us there for game night, I played the defender against two Mark IIIs attacking. Long story short, I could not slow them down enough to prevent them from obliterating most of my army (and the CP), and the cybertanks dodged out of range of my artillery to escape. 

We then set up the green map for a game of raid, with a Mark IV and six GEVs attacking, and a lone Mark V defending (but with two rolls on the reinforcements table). Two of us ran the defense, and the third split his hovercraft away from his Ogre to tear up some real estate. Unfortunately for the GEVs, I had some reinforcements come in nearby and take out most of his armor. The rest tried to close in on my CP, but were driven off (they did kill one of the Mobile Command Posts, however).

Over on the west side of the map (we were at the north end looking south), the attacking cybertank took out the other MCP and some unfortunate reinforcements in that area--until my partner used all six of the Mark V's missiles to destroy the Mark IV's missile racks. A turn or two later, the watchdog took out the attacker's main and secondary batteries, so the Mark IV turned tail.

The fleeing Ogre still had plenty of movement even after losing 39 tread units (two hexes, three on the road). Therefore, we defenders were unable to slow it down enough to capture or kill, but it was still a victory for the locals! 

It was enjoyable playing this classic wargame, and we are playing again this week. Should be fun.

My latest obsession ...

 Shadowdark!

After hearing good things about it on the you-tubes, I picked up a hardbound copy of the Shadowdark RPG from its publisher, The Arcane Library. 

Shadowdark uses modern mechanics (such as d20 difficulty checks and advantage/disadvantage) to provide an old-school experience (dungeon crawls and emergent narrative). Part of that OSR vibe is that characters don't get experience for defeating bad guys, just for finding treasure. This mechanic inspires out-of-the-box thinking instead of just trying to kill everything that moves.

The writing is concise and reminds me of the Holmes Basic rulebook--sections are one or two pages, and concepts explained in a few paragraphs. Part of that is character creation: Roll 3d6 in order for each stat, pick an ancestry and class, roll for starting money, and you have a PC in under 10 minutes.

My gaming group is mostly wargamers, but they've expressed willingness to try out this D&D-type experience, so I hope to have a scenario prepped for them soon. I'd like to eventually turn it into a West Marches-style sandbox campaign, but for now I just want to run a dungeon crawl.

Has anyone played this RPG? Does it sound like something you would be willing to try? If my description of Shadowdark sparks your interest, you can get the Quickstart Set for free. Let me know what you think!

Behold!

Presenting: The Eye Tyrant; a.k.a. The Sphere of Many Eyes, a.k.a. The Beholder!

This figure depicting the classic D&D monster is from the Nolzur's Marvelous Miniatures line by WizKids.

My wife purchased this casting and asked me to paint it for her to take to the office, where it will sit next to the giant I painted for her last year.

I was again very flattered that she asked me to paint a mini for her. Although she's not the gamer I am, she does appreciate my creativity and encourage me to pursue my hobby.

For this minature, I primed it black, then did a lot of drybrushing various shades of color-shifting paint from the craft store (mainly Blue Flash and Purple Flash, using Red Flash, White Flash, and Yellow Flash for the eyeballs. I also used some Army Painter Speed Paints around the mouth and tongue.

This model does come with six of its eyes sculpted onto the main body, and you have the option of adding plain eyestalks or eyestalks shooting magical beams (my spouse chose the former).

Here's a top-down view in case you're curious.

And the figure is very large when compared to human-sized minis; making for a terrifying opponent in the dark lower levels of the dungeon.

Or, in this case, menacing the other miniature next to my wife's work computer. Either way, I enjoyed painting it!

Clanmech binary

Some more battlemechs, this time from the Clan era. As an old-school Battletech player, I'm not much of a fan of the Clan Invasion storyline, but between the Alpha Strike boxed set, some Salvage Box purchases, and a couple of donations, I have amassed 10 of these miniatures. First is the Clan star that was included in the AS box (l-r): Nova, Pouncer, Fire Moth, Warhawk, Timberwolf/Madcat.

Painting was straightforward, if a little messy. I painted the base color with a light tan Krylon spray paint + primer, then used an old toothbrush to spatter various maroon, orange and yellow craft paints onto all of these at once. I then brushed over some Army painter strong tone, picked out the cockpit windows with pearlescent white, painted the bases, varnished them, and called it a day.

The second star came from two blind purchases, a gift of two extra mechs, and the Blood Asp salvage box (l-r): Nova, Huntsman, Linebacker, Warhawk, Blood Asp.

For this unit, I hit them all with a light blue paint + primer, splattered various greens and yellow with the toothbrush, and covered them with green tone before covering the bases in gray and detailing the cockpits, then finishing the bases and clearcoating.

I like this painting technique, although it does take a while to notice whether any paint is actually landing on the minis, and it isn't as fast as you might think. But combine the haphazard drops of color to emulate a random camouflage pattern with the way the wash picks out the details on these castings, and it has an overall pleasing effect. Has anyone else tried something like this on their wargaming minis?

More battlemechs

Here's a trio of mech miniatures I recently completed. Since these came from the blind-purchase Salvage Boxes, they each have a different paint scheme. 

For the Enforcer (left) and Stinger (right), I used Army Painter speed paints. I like how the former came out, but the color scheme on the latter makes it look like a toddler in an outfit —so I gave it the callsign "1-Z".

I'm pleased with how the Atlas (center) came out as well. Another easy task: I hit the bottom and top haves with two different hues of spray primer, then applied green and blue tone to each. I picked out some weapons in gold, applied decals, and sealed with matte spray varnish.

So, that's three more battlemechs ready for our Alpha Strike games, for close to 40 total. Only about two dozen left for me to paint!

Corpsefire

Playing one of the military expedition mini-campaigns in Oathbreakers, I needed a corpsefire mini. I decided to use this Reaper Bones miniature.

In a simultaneous attempt at zenithal highlighting and color gradient, I hit this with red Krylon primer from below, some orange straight from the side, and yellow from above. I then drybrushed and picked out details using color shifting and regular craft paints for an undead mini without any black. 

Quite the change, but I like how it came out, even though it suffered the new-figure curse and died on the first turn. 

Grunhilda says hello

 A little late for St. Patrick's Day, but please allow me to introduce Grunhilda Vert, part of a project I'm working on for my gaming group. The figure came from an Arena of the Planeswalkers game I picked up cheap a few years back.

I painted this mini by basecoating with some brush-on craft paint (I learned the hard way that Rustoleum spray primer on other models from this box remained tacky for more than a year; it took covering them with regular acrylics to get rid of the stickiness), overbrushing gray, and drybrushing white. 

The casting's details showed up easily under the drybrush, and I then used various shades of speed paints and some craft metallics with a wash to apply the color scheme. The banner is paper covered with craft paint and wrapped around a coffee stirrer straw that fits over the wand she's holding. 

It was a quick task for a tabletop standard, and I'm happy with the result. Now, who wants to guess what I'm gonna use her for?