Salute Saturdays: Troublemaker Games

I already mentioned a little bit of Troublemaker Games in my original Salute coverage, but they had a lot on display!

Here, in amid the Timeline 300 Martians I already know and love, was some really nice . . . epic, in fact, plastic scenery sprues.

Here's one of them free standing on the table.

Something people will not have seen for a long time - 6mm plastic sci fi infantry and tanks.

It turns out that Troublemaker successfully crowd-funded their own 6mm wargame, "Defeat in Detail", which they are now producing.

There's an assortment of bits and pieces which they've done for a few different factions.

These are some infantry for a faction called the "Cybershadows".

It does seem that conveniently, a lot of the models could co-incidentally be used as a "counts as" faction for other popular, discontinued 6mm wargames, should someone have a mind to do so.

They've got a really excellent range of bits and pieces for this game done up, from the walkers to the planes.

The tanks have also been nicely thought out and have their own distinct look, despite their suitability to be used for other systems as well.

These ones, I think, are coming soon to a new crowd-funder. They looked pretty nice. Or are they part of the original campaign? I know not!

Some cannibalistic bikers.

I love this big chunky shuttle. Sadly, I don't have a use for it right now.

These could also be used quite nicely as combat robots in 28mm wargames as well.

Salute 2014 - Miniature Companies: Old Friends

I'm breaking down my Salute posts into something coherent and . . . aw, who am I kidding? This is the only way I'll get my Salute posts done at all. Aiming for coherency is just pushing my luck.

This post consists of photos I remembered to take during the day, so is rather erratic in its coverage and focus.

So first up are Heresy. They of the Dragon. In short, Heresy have been making a Dragon model for absolutely years. There have been epic number of delays, and the pre-order backlog is currently sitting at 164, with a handful actually sent out.

But they are still going, not dead, and starting to do the resin casting by hand, one by one. I have the utmost respect for that determination in the face of adversity.

This chap is the Netherlord, one of their old metal sculpts, redone in resin to help pay the bills. You may be guessing already that Sim had a teensy bit of a budget slip at Heresy. Some day she will not be painting a titan commission and hit some of her own backlog!

One of Sim's favourite purchases from last year, Troublemaker Games were there again this year. In addition to Timeline 300, they are now working on Defeat in Detail, which is a 6mm Sci Fi wargame with plastic pieces. It successfully funded on Indiegogo during the year, and there were plenty of examples available, which I'll be showing off in a later post.

There was also Taban. I was super tempted by the Puppet Master and the Escape board game, but I decided to leave that for another day.

I liked JoeK minis' stuff last year. This year I bought some! He's also planning a Kickstarter soon.

There were also a couple of miniature folk who we already know who I didn't take any photos of. Forge World unsurprisingly got a ton of my money, but didn't have any miniatures on display that I saw. Hasslefree also gleefully parted my darling wife from her money in a pretty cheerful fashion. Sphere Wars is also something I really want to get into - I'd signed up to demo games for them, but had to back out as work has gotten super busy. We also said a quick hello to Warploque Miniatures, who had a lot of the Kickstarter models for Arcworlde on display. Studio McVey remain awesome people who put out excellent stuff, although this year I didn't pick anything up - I still have to paint the one I got from them last year!

Projects around the house

Things have been super busy recently, and that means a lot of projects have just been being lying around the house, or waiting to be picked up again. I decided to take a few shots of the state of the house to give my loyal readers an idea of what I'm working on.

The lounge room is covered in half assembled furniture. This is not actually mine, but Sim's. This is the new KR "WarDesk" which she pre-ordered at Salute. It's the desk that folds out into a 4 x 4 gaming table. Once it's up and finished, expect a celebratory post from me!

More of Sim's projects! These are Martian walkers from Timeline 300. They unfortunately had a few casting issues with these ones, but when Troublemaker Games heard about it, they were very quick to arrange to send us some replacements. Sim is planning on turning the mis-casts into some terrain with wrecked walkers in. All credit to Troublemaker - every manufacturing company will have a glitch or issue somewhere along the line - what marks out the good companies are the ones who fix it.

The first of my projects: Sarissa Silos, with me learning how to airbrush. I'm doing these up as a kind of concrete colour, with rusted metal. At the moment, they're just base coated, but I'm hoping to add in some simple airbrush highlights on the concrete, shade the metal a little, then try out a few weathering techniques on the metal to finish.

On the CD shelf, we have a certain Herald of Tzeentch who mocks me at every turn with my slow progress on him.

... and the wider shot, showing I haven't lost his disc (which is actually undercoated) or his flight stand.

My god, it's full of projects. Also, this is a mess. I really need to sort this out. I mean, the Hydra is a finished model I dropped into a space when I was swapping tanks around in my carry cases to get out to a game. That's just sloppy.

Guardsmen! One is as far as having a head, although his neck will need some Green Stuff work. These are going to be another 20 infantrymen when I'm done, lightly armed with just a flamer for each squad to discourage assaults. My Guard army is seriously lacking in troops choices, so I hope they'll provide me with some more tactical flexibility.

This is the worst of it. My Malifaux crew is all over the place. Collodi needs an undercoat, the others need me to get back into painting. A test figure for a Dark Angels colour scheme lies forlornly on his side, discarded and forgotten.

Vindicare sniper, on the verge of completion. I use paper clips for my pinning wire, and leave arms attached while I paint before trimming it down for the actual assembly.

And here's a Lord Commissar I got out to consider for a bit of a kit bash. I managed to lose his right arm and bolt pistol through idiocy and untidiness, so I've been looking for an alternative right arm. He's pretty much prepped for painting short of undercoating. My local gaming store is talking about a little 40K painting competition, so I'm holding off on starting anything with him until then. Really, I need to find a little bag for him and put him away until then.

Relics models resting on top of my wet palette. Also, a jiffy bag from my last Bitzbox order. Again, pure untidiness that I need to fix.

My wife's painting desk is much more restrained and sensible. She just has one project out.

Here's the work in progress.

And here are the finished ones, waiting for their co-conspirators to join them.

I took all these photos before the start of the weekend, so I could have a nice visual representation of what I managed to get done by the end of it. Soon to come - how did I do with getting back on track?

How my bank holiday went

Its already Wednesday and I haven't updated! I had a good Bank Holiday and got a lot done.

I've been learning how to use my wife's airbrush and am quite pleased with how I'm doing, although I think I will need to take a break before doing any more so the wife does not kill me dead. Apparently I am an infuriating pupil...

Other than the learning, I also got a lot of under-coating done. Sim is getting some preparation done for her Timeline 300 purchases from Salute. As I was undercoating already, I picked up her undercoating. These are the mining machines, now undercoated.

And here is the main thing I got done. Four Sarissa silos all undercoated and ready for painting. One was done from an airbrush, the others with standard white spray undercoat. The airbrushing was unnecessary, and was just to learn about how to use it.

I also airbrushed these cobbles, which are intended for background for photographing other models I do. I've since washed it with black wash to improve the contrast. I'm pleased how that's come out.

I've written this on my iPad, and can't work out how to do my usual links through the app... I'll come back and add those tomorrow night. (Now done, 11 May - I was clearly very busy!)

The week after Salute . . . and future plans

So, how has my week gone? I've made a few posts about Salute, with the pics of the Forge World display unsurprisingly doing well, but with a surprising amount of interest in my post about Troublemaker Games. I'm guessing this is because I got a shout on the Tactical Command forum. God knows what will happen if I actually start playing Timeline 300 rather than just the wife.

ClauseIV1918's Grey Knights

On Wednesday I pottered down to Dark Sphere and saw that things have been getting busier on 40K nights since I was last there. ClauseIV1918 has been expanding his Grey Knights, and his blog is mentioning he's also branching out with some Imperial Guard allies.

Ravenwing, about to massacre some Chaos

I got in a game against the Ravenwing on a cityscape board, and got comprehensively beaten - although it wasn't, on reflection, the massacre I first thought it to be.

Which leads on to my upcoming posts! I still have one more Salute 2013 post to do, which will be a general summary of how the event went for me. I should write up a battle report about what happens when Sammael and Mephiston decide to hang out together and shoot some Guardsmen. I've also been tinkering about with Sarissa kits to add some extra detail to them.

Look at those beautifully recessed doors!

Finally, I've booked in for some events. I will be at Grumpy Old Wargamers Con in June, and Enter the Citadel at Warhammer World in July. They will likely, in turn, lead to some more blog posts of their own...

I'm going to shelve the aborted attempt to paint the Salute Mayan for now, try and finish off the Scribe and Vindicare, and really knuckle down on the Tzeentch Herald, Malifaux Collodi Crew and Sarissa Buildings, with any spare time going into getting a little more progress with my currently stalled Imperial Guard.

Salute 2013: Troublemaker games - Resource Management Steampunk Wargaming. With Martians. (Or: How To Get Money From My Wife)

One of the new games that my wife picked up at Salute was a little 10mm game called Timeline 300. It's made by a little company called Troublemaker Games.

Its an alternative history setting, where a mysterious "HGW" has been altering history time and time again to try and avert the end of the world - and this is the events of one of the timelines where he failed.

In it, Steampunk British forces clash with Marxist German Zombies and War of the World style Martian invaders.

The British forces seem to have the most models at the moment, with a number of different sized land ships.

The Martians, however, have awesome looking "War of the Worlds" style walkers.

There was a pretty display board set up with some Martians and British Land Cruisers facing off.

My personal favourite unit: British adventurers - nobles armed with eccentric firearms, chainsaws and who knows what else.

This is the biggest model available at the moment - the British Land Cruiser. Troublemaker are hoping that if they make enough money from Salute, they can make similar sized models for the Germans and the Martians. Good luck to them!

The Martians also have flying saucers, which are armed with the deadly "Black Smoke".

German Zombies - because they love their country, and President Marx so much - sometimes they come back to continue to serve!

Some German infantry - relatively ordinary, but standard line troops generally are.

 German tanks. Now, the interesting thing about this game is that it's a resource management game - it's about controlling the coal mines on the board and  teleporting new units onto the battlefield.

These are new models! So new, I can't find them in the rulebook or on Troublemaker's website... Its not often I get 'exclusives' (although yes, they were at Salute, I've not found anyone else talking much about them on the internet yet - technicalities count, right?)...

As you may have guessed from the title, Troublemaker parted my wife with a good chunk of her hard earned money - she has two armies so other people can play, too. Once we've got them painted and assembled, I'll report back - but it may be a while, we have a lot of things to go through!