Aliens: We're in the pipe, five by five

I painted the figures from We're in the pipe, five by five, the expansion for Aliens: Another glorious day in the Corps. It is not a snappily-named series. After the above photo, I went back and added more details to their patches and her glasses.

Spunkmeyer & Ferro

Descent: Lair of the Worm

I realised I've now painted all the figures for the Descent expansion, Lair of the worm. The photos were taken at different times, hence the different backgrounds. I've done them pretty quick and loose with Speedpaints. They're good enough for a game.

Valyndra

Valyndra

Hybrid Sentinels

Fire Imps

High Mage Quellen

Reynhart the Worthy

Gladiators

I recently picked up Spartacus, the 2021 boardgame about running a stable of gladiators. I've looked at Jugula before, and now I've heard Blood on the Sands is launching a Kickstarter imminently.

Here are my figures for Spartacus- they're non-heroically-proportioned 28mm plastic.

Here are 20mm Italeri soft plastics I painted up at the start of this year:

Most of these were painted with Speedpaints/ Contrast.

Space Hulk: reflections

I recently finished all the 'campaign' from Space Hulk (2014), including the 'Disable the shields' game from White Dwarf #33 (Sep 2014). The photos of this scenario are below. I've dragged this out over several years against the same opponent, knocking off a few games each year. I'm very glad to have completed all these games, which I have never done despite owning Space Hulk (1989) since the 90s.

The boarding torpedo screams across the void.

The Terminators break into the hulk.

Contact! A long corridor provides no cover.

The squad advances with mutual cover...

Jammed! A genestealer rips the heavy flamer marine apart.

As the plan falls apart, the far marine makes a slow break for the objective.

The genestealers swarm!

Jammed! The sergeant goes down.

The terminator sacrifices himself to buy time.

The sole survivor lumbers toward the objective.

He holds off the xenos long enough to disable the shields.
Victory! But at what cost?

I have long appreciated the elegant simplicity of SH: the tension of blips moving on the board, and everything swinging on single die rolls. 6s to hit in shooting with minimal modifiers; simple action points, line of sight, and square grid-based movement. There have been some changes from the 1989 original but the core experience is the same*. While the Terminator player gets D6 'Command Points' to spend every turn to give them a little action flexibility, the only surprises the Genestealer player has are how many xenos each blip represents. This does sadly lead to some predictable situations where you know exactly that you are unreachable this turn.

I can't help but try to improve this venerable classic- give the 'Stealer some random cards which maybe they pay for in blips, that they could use to move extra squares or appear in unexpected places.

I put quotation marks around 'campaign' because the games are not linked in any meaningful way. Win or lose has no effect on upcoming missions, and your deaths are miraculously healed. This is another area that could be improved.

I'm tempted to dig up the Deathwing (1990) expansion which, IIRC, had a mini solo campaign.

Is it time for a refresh of this venerable game, or should it be left at peace? Can you recommend a similar game?

* I cannot recommend the Genestealer expansion (1990), the psychic and shooting rules are clunky.

Terrorscapes horror game report

I had a game of Terrorscape recently, which hadn't been on my radar before. It is a boardgame leaning heavily into horror movie tropes. Up to three players are characters trapped in a mansion. Behind a screen, the other player is the killer, who doesn't know where the survivors are. The killer has to use logic and deduction to find, fix and finish their opponents- killing one survivor to win the game. The survivors can run, hide, and sometimes defend themselves. but cannot hurt the killer. They have to find five keys or fix the radio and wait for the police- all these actions make noise which attracts the killer, who gets stronger as the game progresses.

Our game was painted by my friend Lims, who took the killer's role. The Butcher has abilities to progressively lock down parts of the mansion. We found a few helpful items, not to mention a secret passage to the telephone room, and were saved by a cameo from Commissioner Gordon- not a moment too soon, as my character was about to be murderised!

I was concerned that the tension in a horror film comes from not knowing where the killer is, whereas in this game the killer's position is known. It was still tense, however, and I understand there are different types of villains that can be picked, as well as different locales.

Recommended!

Discworld Witches

These are teenage apprentice witches from Terry Pratchett's Discworld, meant for use with the boardgame The Witches. The 40mm figures don't come with the game, but are from Micro Arts Studio in Poland. I played this on Hallowe'en, and realised I hadn't put these figures on this blog before. I painted them for AHPC XI. 

Terry Pratchett’s witches are a crucial part of his rural communities. Each one brings her own style to their role of combined village doctor, midwife, veterinarian, and defender of the voiceless.

Tiffany Aching

Annagramma Hawkin

Dimity Hubbub

Petulia Gristle