Returning to gaming with Stargrave

Our first miniatures game since the pandemic began (yay vaccines!), so I rebased my old Rogue Trader-era figures as my Stargrave crew (all original 30-year-old paint jobs, except the commissar, who I painted within the last decade or so). The Bastard Squad is led by Al S.T. Claar, the comissar. He still thinks he's in a 40K game, so he has some words about the Emperor he would like to share.

Since there were four of us, we had plenty of terrain to fill a 6' x 6' table at the game store. We decided to just play a generic game with all four players to get to know the rules.

Mechanically, this game is very similar to Frostgrave and Ghost Archipelago. But with weapons like grenades--and grenade launchers--it's not a good idea to bunch up.

My captain made the mistake of getting out in front of his men. The idea of hand-to-hand combat was just too enticing.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the board, another player's space goblins were having a hard time accessing a data loot objective. That's because he didn't have a hacker in his crew, which gives you a +6 when you try to download data. His basic crewgoblins kept missing their target rolls, prompting me to joke that they're standing in front of the termal confused, asking each other, "Which one's the 'any' key???"

Meanwhile, my Sentry, Whome, was mixing it up with a bunch of United Federation of Planets crewmembers.

All the shooting meant a roll on the Unwanted Attention Table, drawing in a bounty hunter. As luck and the placement dice roll would have it, he appeared on the side of the board right next to my guy.

Stargrave is here

 

I just got my copy of the Stargrave rulebook, and after hearing about it for so long, I'm looking forward to playing a few games. With more people vaccinated, it looks like in-person gaming will pick up again, so I need to star assembling my crew. 

While the official Stargrave minis look cool, I have a bunch of old Rogue Trader figures I plan to dust off and get on the table.  Here are a few of them, which I used in Hordes of the Things until the Great Lead Avalanche of 2010. Not sure exactly how I will stat them out, but it will be fun playing once more.

A la Cart

I know--I'm late with this week's figure. But At Least One Miniature Every Eight Days isn't quite as catchy as the current name for my little project, so I'm sticking with ALOMAW. Anyway, here is a ... cart. It's from the Reaper Bones Wiz Kids Deep Cuts line (fixed! thanks, Stu Rat!), and there's not much else to it.

This casting has a lot of detail, but you need an ink wash to bring it out. That's pretty much all I did, after painting the cart in a couple shades of brown. When the wash was done, I drybrushed a little to give it more of a weathered look (and I may need to add some more).

So this will work out nicely for scenery or objectives in skirmish games like Frostgrave, Melee, or Song of Blades and Heroes. It will also come in handy as part of a baggage train for Oldhammer scenarios. Happy painting, y'all!

Loot from MillenniumCon

As always, part of the fun of going to a game convention is getting stuff: Buying new products, receiving prizes for playing in games, and scoring bargains at the flea market. MillenniumCon was no different:

For playing an introductory game of Frostgrave, I received these playing aids, a couple of figures, and some terrain. More importantly, I met some local players who have a weekly game at Dragon's Lair:

From a vendor with tables stacked high with old Citadel Minis, I tracked down some additions to my Oldhammer skellies and some Halfling mercenaries to join my Bretonnians:

 

At Ed the THW Guy's table, I bought a couple of rules to try out, and for inspiration in my own designs:

At the flea market on Sunday, I couldn't resist this Star Wars diecast spaceship for one buck:

Also at the flea market, I found some more Bretonnians for my Oldhammer project, as well as Kings of War (and other games):

The same guy also had some movement trays, templates, and tokens:

Finally, another flea market vendor had some Warhammer 5th edition sourcebooks, which will provide inspiration:

Lots to keep me busy over the next few months.

My next gaming project

I won't start working on it until after Millenniumcon 19 in November, but I've decided what my next gaming project will be. More details later, but for now, here's a hint:

More Oldhammer goodness

Once again, I had an opportunity to buy this Warhammer Armies book for WHFB 3rd edition, but I left it on the shelf. Months later, I was in the same game store, and of course it had vanished from where I last saw it. I lamented the fact that I had let this old-school find slip through my fingers.

So imagine my delight when I found this very volume a few shelves over. I took that as a sign that the purchase was meant to be, and I snagged this. Now to get an army put together and find an opponent to play some Oldhammer.

Another Oldhammer find

Is fifth-edition Warhammer considered Oldhammer? It's from two decades ago, so I'm gonna say yes.

I found this Warhammer Battle Book from the fifth edition boxed set at Half Price Books recently. I'm a little surprised that I am interested in the background from this era of the game (I have the Lizardmen and Bretonnia army books), but it is pretty interesting reading.

The Battle Book includes brief overviews (and lotsa photos) of the various forces of the Warhammer world. It also has rules and stats for many of the races, beasts, and monsters. There's also a short section on running campaigns, which can be adapted to other games as well. Who else has scored something vintage from a used book store recently?

Hordes of the Things game day

More than two months without a blog post---and even this is from last month. I blame general laziness as well as Fallout 4.

So in January, I made it down to TableTop in San Antonio for some Hordes of the Things. While we use repurposed Warhammer figures, we arent' afraid to get creative. In that regard, I brought out my Space Invaders army: fifteen Hordes (the Space Invaders themselves), two Sneakers (the ghosts Blinky, Inky, Pinky, and Clyde crossing over from Pac Man), and an Airboat general (the saucer).

Their first opponent was Johnny's fantasy Romans with a whole bunch of Spears, a couple of Blades, a minotaur Behemoth, and a Hero general. Before his line could engage my massed army, the saucer captured his stronghold with the aid of the ghosts.

My next game was against Grant, who brought his AT-43 army. I mainly remember he played it with a Aerial Hero general and a Paladin, along with Blades and Shooters and a Behemoth. His Hero and Paladin ended up taking out my Airboat general to win that one.

I also faced off against Blake's Chaos army (mostly GW figs and a D&D prepaint), but I switched to my skeleton army (Magician general, Spears, Shooters, Artillery, and Lurker). His Hero, accompanied by Knights, ended up getting around my flank to kill my Artillery, and he eventually won on points.

Meanwhile, Chip's GW Empire army took on Johnny's Romans. I can't remember how that one turned out.

The GW Empire army also fought the AT-43 force. Don't know the result of that, either.

Finally, we had a big battle: Chip's dark elves joined my undead against Grant's AT-43 army teamed up with Blake's GW Empire force.

My Magician general forced Grant's flyers to flee off the board. Then Chip and I drew in the enemy commander-in-chief and finished him off to claim victory.

A fun day of Hordes of the Things. Next time we play, we want to do more of a scenario-driven game--Ragnorok. Time to dust off the Sons of Muspel!

Taking up Kings of War

Wow, September's over, and I managed to avoid posting a single blog entry.

Anyway, here are some work-in-progress shots of my latest project: a Lizardmen army for Oldhammer/Salamanders army for Kings of War. I like getting my minis cheap, and using them for more than one game.

The figures above are not my paint job; I got them already painted from eBay. Below are some more I've based and need to prime that came from my Half-Price Books score.

I may also use some of these guys for Hordes of the Things as well as Book of War. As I said, I like to get mileage from my figs.

Warhammer buildings

Well, it only took three-and-a-half years from the time I purchased the box to assemble the cardboard buildings that came with the fifth edition Warhammer boxed set.

Here you can see the results, pictured with the commander from the Nightmare Legion for scale. These aren't diorama models, but they will do nicely for wargames.

In addition to the tower, there is a large house or inn as well as a small shed. I would like to find some more old Warhammer scenery like this, but this type of thing is relatively rare and expensive on eBay.

The buildings were relatively straightforward to assemble--just punch out each die-cut section and use some white glue to fasten it. I also used scotch tape on the inside to ensure the pieces stayed together. Pro tip: line the edges of each piece with an appropriately colored permanent marker to make it look less like paper and more like a building.

These three structures will make a nice area to fight over or around once I have some Oldhammer forces to put on the table. They will also go well as terrain for Song of Blades and Heroes games, or even Book of War.

Lizardman hero for Oldhammer

I've decided to build an Oldhammer army. OK, several armies. One of them is Lizardmen, since I got a whole bunch of them really cheap one time. And while I have plenty of rank-and-file, I needed a suitable hero figure. I didn't want to pay premium prices for a Games Workshop model, and browsing my local game store I came across this guy:

He's a Lizardman Warrior from the Reaper Bones line of minis, and I think he fits in nicely with the GW plastics. Here he is posing with a Skink and a Saurus:

Suitably imposing, as a hero figure should be, and he fits in style-wise to me. Once they are all painted, they should look good as a cohesive force on the tabletop.

Starting an Oldhammer army

Now that I have my Warhammer Fantasy Battle third edition rulebook, I need to think about the miniatures I will use.  To me, the Oldhammer ethos doesn't necessarily involve vintage figures, but instead revolves around using minis to build the army you want.  That said, I still have a ton of old GW plastics from their Skeleton Army boxed set.  I can use these to build two or three units with the minimum number of figures.  (I still have plenty of metal castings as well, but most of those are destined to expand my Nightmare Legion army for Hordes of the Things.)

Besides, I think it will be fun to build an army using all these plastics.  In addition to the foot soldiers, I have enough skeletal riders for a cavalry unit, as well as a chariot or two.  My plan is to keep this army as simple as possible, attaching banners to indicate leaders, unless I want to include a metal mini as champion or general.  Since they're skeletons, they're pretty easy to paint, and detailing should be simple as well.

This will be a long-term project, however.  I have a move to get through next week, and then I'm concentrating on finishing the terrain and miniatures for an Ogre scenario I'm running at MillenniumCon this November. But after that, I plan to start on this army and find me some opponents for some third edition Warhammer.  Who wants to join me?

Oldhammer in the house!

After several months, I finally scored a copy of Third Edition Warhammer Fantasy Battle.  I've been reading about the Oldhammer movement, and it's philosophy is similar to that of the Old School Renaissance: a do-it-yourself vibe, with heavy reliance on a referee instead of a rulebook.  The book has some wear, but it isn't falling apart.

This is the edition that got me started in fantasy gaming back in the late 1980s.  Although I'd been playing D&D for  quite awhile, when it came to wargaming I was sci-fi only--Ogre, Battletech, and Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, which eventually led me around to Warhammer Fantasy Battle. 

Since I worked in a game store around this time, my employee discount resulted in the acquisition of  a whole bunch of undead miniatures (that being my favorite army).  However, I never really got to use them on the battlefield until I started playing Hordes of the Things.  However, the idea of quickly painting up a couple of units and a champion or two for a quick battle has me excited.  And now I have the rules, so I can get those skellies on the table for some Oldhammer!