Robots, Servitors, Arvis Lighter, and other Bits and Bobs

An assortment of odd and sundry items finally made their way off my workbench this week. Most of them have been hovering around the edges for some time. I think this is because I am avoiding working on the Space Hulk Terminators or the Shadespire minis I feel like I "SHOULD" be working on... Also I though they'd be handy in this evenings Rogue Trader game.



First up are a few Bits and Bobs from Lead Adventure Miniatures. The "tech crate" (which I think looks like a small plasma generator) is from the Astropolis II Kickstarter, and the other two were from the Dwarf Gold Fever Kickstarter.



Next, a couple of robots also from Lead Adventure Miniatures  Astropolis II Kickstarter. I was kind of torn about how to paint them. I was originally thinking kind of retro/steampunk-y with browns and brass... but then went with bright colours... just... because. The one in the centre I'm going to use as a universal translator on legs this evening. Well... if they actually get to TALKING to the people on the planet and not just exterminating them outright... It's 40K... It happens..



A couple of gen-u-ine Games Workshop Servitors.



Lastly, I finally finished up my Arvis Lighter. The model is from Forge World.



Originally I'd thought of doing this in tans, like most of the other Imperial vehicles I've been doing lately, but since this wasn't really supposed to be for the Tallarn - it's see use as a imperial naval vessel or for a Rogue Trader. As I was MOSTLY thinking of using it for a Rogue trader, I had though to do this up all flash, but couldn't decide on a colour scheme and eventually said "Eff it!" and just painted the whole damned think French Mirage Blue just to get it done. I picked that colour because it wasn't quite grey and  I don't have many bluish vehicles.



I was a little disappointed with how the canopy turned out. When I glued the clear plastic bits into the frame they got all cloudy... and when I tried to clear some of it off it only made it worse... If anyone remembers back when I first posted about this I had done a lot of detail work in the cockpit... none of which can be seen at all...



Boring, but serviceable... and done.



The door/ramp at the back does open and close. I painted a bunch of details on the inside...



But when it's sitting on the tabletop it just looks dark inside...



If you pick it up and hold it just so... at an angle that Leith can actually get in there... you can ALMOST make out SOME of the details



The Lighter also came with a flight base so it can fly around the table.

According to the rules, I think a multilaser or autocannon could have been mounted on it -  none were included with the model, but I had spares left over from Sentinels I had considered mounting on it. But I figures since it was a Rogue Traders craft, maybe it'd be best NOT to fly down to planets where you plan on making negoations, in an armed vessel...? If they wanted to put on a show of FORCE they could be escorted by something with much bigger guns... I'm not sure what that would be just yet... but at some point I will probably need a flyer with much bigger guns...

 

One of my biggest gaming regrets was selling off my original copy of Rogue Trader - like, the original one... For years I've been looking for one that wasn't CrAzY expensive to buy - or that wasn't falling apart - and I finally tracked one down. I've been rereading it lately and one thing that's struck me was how the game assumes that it will be played with a games master - who designs a scenario. the point system seems like a last ditch option... Nice trip down memory lane and lots of ideas to incorporate into the current Rogue Trader campaign.



A few weeks before I picked up the Rogue Trader book, I picked up this little gem at Dragon's Den Games. It's full of stuff from "back in the day". I though at first it was mostly from old White Dwarfs - most of which I had and recycled about a decade ago thinking I'd never look at them again (so stupid... everytime I do this it makes it harder to let go of anything - I always end up thinking: "But in ten years am I suddenly going to be interested in this again and wish I hadn't gotten rid of it...!?"). As it turns out about half of it is just reprinted from the Rogue Trader Core Rule book... so... wasn't all that necessary. There is another one for Space Marines and Chaos. I might have a look at the chaos one at some point - probably a lot of it is reprinted out of Realms of Chaos...



Oh, and Amanda got herself a t-shirt to wear when she's playing her Sisters...


Coming Soon to Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Maybe a game report of tonight's game. If I remember to take pictures... I'm feeling a little burned out with the painting. Actually I'm feeling a little burned out, period. I feel like I could just sleep for a week. I think I've picked up this cough that Amanda's had for the last week... Ugh...

Rogue Trader Personalities

After finishing up the Khorne Bloodbound Warband for John earlier this week, I concentrated on getting a few miniatures finished up for the Rogue Trader campaign I'm starting up TOMORROW!!



These first three are from Hasslefree Miniatures. Options for Astropath, Rogue Trader, and a Void Master Pilot.



These next three are from the Lead Adventure Miniatures Astropolis II Kickstarter. These could be an Exploratory, a Navigator and... I don't know...? Seneschal...?

I'm trying to get a few done for each character type so the players will have some choice as to what they use for their character in the game.

Tomorrow we'll just be making characters and working out backgrounds and I'll be introducing them to the setting and how the campaign will work. The campaign is a bit different from most I've run - where player characters are generally lower level and just starting out their careers in... whatever sort of adventuring they plan to do... In Rogue Trader the characters start off as pretty powerful characters in command of a Rogue Trader void ship with a crew of thousands at their disposal. They are so wealthy that money isn't even kept track of - instead there is an abstracted "Profit Factor" against which they make "Acquisition Tests" modified by how rare the item is and how many you want.

I imagine it might be a lot like the old Birthright setting for D&D which I never played, but always thought was a neat idea - playing a game where your characters START OFF as nobles in charge of some holding - rather than having to carve out a kingdom by your own sword!



Finally... well... they don't necessarily have anything to do with the Rogue Trader Campaign (at least not as characters...)... are a pair of "Rogue Trader Era" squig miniatures I've had since the late 80s and recently decided to strip and repaint...


Coming Soon to Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog:

I might do a post about the various characters in the campaign...

In terms of miniatures you're likely to see next... well... I have loads more Rogue Trader-ish characters on the workbench still, but I've pushed some more Tallarn to the front of the workbench - two Special Weapon Squads armed with Meltaguns. Behind them are miniatures for Amanda's Tau Kill Team for Shadow War: Armageddon. Behind those is a squad of Tallarn Roughriders. I'm going to try and alternate between Tallarn and... other things... just to keep it interesting.

I did finish assembling the Shadowsword and started painting it... but it seems to have been pushed aside for the time being. I'll probably plug away at it, a bit at a time, so it doesn't get tedious and abandoned altogether.

Perhaps I'll do a post about the games played over the past week... which have been NONE (so far!) but the kids are hoping to get in a game tonight and there'll be the Rogue Trader game tomorrow... and maybe I could add some pics of the Kitchen into that as the tile back splash finally went in this week... which SHOULD have finished things off...

Crew of the Astropolis, Shanspire and More

Earlier this year I backed the Astropolis II Kickstarter from Lead Adventure Miniatures. I'd passed on the first Astropolis Kickstarter and had been kicking myself ever since, so when the second one came up, I went all in for the megaload - Hyperspeed Level - all packs from both kickstarters! They a few months back and have been haunting the periphery of my painting tables since...



The Caption of the Astropolis and his trusty Astromech robot Twinkles.

These are among the very first miniatures I've painted that didn't make use of my standard dirt basing technique. (Okay there was the Genestealers last week - but I started these WAY before I picked up those Necromunda bases and painted them...). When these arrived and I started basing them I got it in my head that I'd make some modular interior spaceship/space station squares (much like the underground terrain squares I've started) and got thinking that dirt bases would look more out of place there than these bases might look dirtside.



A few of the Mechanical Crew.

I have another dozen or so of these in a half-painted state on the workbench. Hopefully you'll be seeing more of these - along with more Tallarn. Perhaps this will be the crew of the ship that transports my Tallarn Guard Regiments through the WARP!



The body of this figure is, I think, from Britannia miniatures. I ordered a bunch of their 28mm gunfighters, oh, 25-30 years ago...? This fellows head broke off in the mail - which seemed really odd as the miniature themselves seem really sturdy and chunky - perhaps it was taken out of the mould too quickly and broke at that point...? It's been sitting in my box-o-lead for ages and I finally decided to put him to use and glued  on a new head from Lead Adventure Miniatures.



I also finished up a second Shadespire miniature for my friend John. The remaining fellow from this war band is nearly complete...

I probably could have finished it but I took a break from painting the last two evenings to assemble John's Adeptus Mechanics Skitarii Rangers (and deeply regretted having agreed to do those! Oi! They were very fiddly... I suppose the painting will be quick and easy, though...).


In other news...



The countertops went in this morning.



The Girl pointing out where the stove will be going.



In addition to the renovation in the kitchen, Amanda decided it was time to upgrade the main floor bath and so, around the time I did all the demo work in the kitchen, I removed the bathroom sink... and we've been without a sink on the mainfloor for the last couple months... While the countertop guys were installing the kitchen countertops, Amanda had them bring in a new countertop for the vanity in the bathroom.

tomorrow the tile guy is supposed to be in and doing the backsplash in the kitchen over the next two days, and then on Thursday and Friday the final plumbing and electrical work in the kitchen and bathroom should be going on and by Friday night we should have a fully functioning house again (assuming something else doesn't break....)!

A Few More RPGaDay Questions

Question #28

WHAT FILM/SERIES IS THE BIGGEST SOURCE OF QUOTES IN YOUR GROUP?

I'd say it depends a bit on what group and what game we’re playing… Monty Python has always been a big one over the years (in particular the Holy Grail and maybe Life of Brian). I’d guess that was the single most-quoted source… perhaps ALIENS being the second…

Once a group has been together long enough and they have some good role-players, though, there tends to be a shift from movie quotes to in jokes and self-referential quotes. In my current alternating-fridays group we often joke about "excessive role-playing" because our GM Bruce told us one night that we'd be finishing up the campaign he'd been running for the previous year and a half. It took us three more months to finish it off. He later claimed it was due to our "excessive role-playing" and now we joke about that any time he says anything to do with how long something will take us or if someone really gets into the role-playing of a certain situation - someone will say "knock it off with all the 'excessive role-playing'".

In our current D&D campaign one of the Rogues traffics a product he calls "Sorcerers Squash" - a hallucinogenic that grows in the nearby jungles. He often misses sessions in the spring and fall due to farming (like the player actually farms and can't make it to games) so we started saying his character was hitting the squash or the "product". Now anytime someone misses a game - their character's been "on the squash"... I'm sure when we wrap up the campaign it will continue to be the excuse for missing characters!


Question #29

WHAT HAS BEEN THE BEST-RUN KICKSTARTER YOU HAVE BACKED?

I can’t say I’ve ever backed a role-playing game through kickstarter. I’ve backed board games and miniatures and graphic novels. Of those I think the ones that were the best so far have been the Lead Adventure ones (Dwarven Gold Fever and Astropolis II), and Ramshackle Games Jet Bike Construction Kits - which I guess could be used with RPGs - the Astropolis miniatures are going to be perfect for Rogue Trader!


Question #30

WHAT IS AN RPG GENRE-MASH-UP YOU WOULD MOST LIKE TO SEE?

I need to see LESS mash-ups. Sometimes I feel like everything “new” is just a mash-up of tired old settings – it’s like developers just say let’s take [this] and add [zombies and/or battlemechs and/or magic and/or aliens or alien technology] and that will be AWESOME!!!! (It's not really awesome).


Question #31 (a day early, but whatever...)

WHAT DO YOU ANTICIPATE MOST FOR GAMING IN 2018?

Gaming…? just gaming… and getting back to more role-playing. It's been too damned long since I've really run any role-playing games. I’d really like to do more role-playing with my kids – while they’re still actually interested in playing games with ME!? This week I actually have arranged to play a game of Only War with the kids and one of their friends tomorrow and I'm going to be trying out Tales from the Loop with some other friends on Friday evening (both of which I hope might turn into a campaign that I'll continue to run through the fall and winter). I'd also like to try out Rogue Trader and have another game I'd like to run with some home-brew rules (largely based on Song of Blades and Heroes)!

I'd also like to get playing some actual MINIATURE GAMES over the next year! I feel like I've hardly played any over the last year and a half since the Quest for the Skull Sword campaign last February. Sure, I've got in a game or two of The Pikeman's Lament... but it's not like previously where I was playing as many miniature games in a month as I've played all year! And there are a LOT of games I'd like to play - I'd like to get back to playing Song of Blades and Heroes or Song of Shadows and Dust - or any of the other Ganesha Games, I'd like to try out the new edition of Warhammer 40K and Dracula's America (which I just picked up!), and definitely get in some MORE game of The Pikeman's Lament (and Dragon Rampant and Lion Rampant and try out Men Who Would Be Kings).


In Other News... 

Tomorrow I'll hopefully get to posting my monthly Boardgame Round-up of all the games we played through the month of August. Hopefully, in the not-too-distant future I'll get to posting some new minis I've painted. Production has slowed in the mini painting department as we're finally getting moving on our kitchen/dining room renovation.

Yesterday I started wrecking the dining room. That wall is coming out (no, it's not load-bearing!) and a peninsula of cabinetry is going in there - to open up the area a bit. Plumber and Electrician are coming today to start 

Immortal Tim - Destructor of Kitchens. 

Jet Bikes! Astropolis II! RPGaDay!

I have no pictures of the Astropolis II stuff - it just arrived yesterday and I'm pretty excited and so I just had to mention that...

I did finally finish up another Jet Bike!



This bike was assembled from parts I acquired from the Ramshackle Games Jet Bike Construction Kit Kickstarter.



Back end.



I'd actually been trying to paint from memory - having looked at the source material a few days before and was horrified when I went to double check... something... and realized I'd done the striping  all wrong!? GAH!?I'd spent so much time painting all that red and white checking I had to take a picture of it before I painted it all over with black...

I've been slacking off on posting my RPGaDay answers on the blog here (they do go up daily on a Facebook gaming group I run)...

RPGaDay 2017 Question #21

WHICH RPG DOES THE MOST WITH THE LEAST WORDS?

I don't know... Savage Worlds? Maybe?

RPGaDay 2017 Question #22. 

WHICH RPGs ARE THE EASIEST FOR YOU TO RUN?

I have found simple games that are light on rules the easiest for me to run. Savage Worlds was great for this. I’m trying to move to even simpler rules.

RPGaDay 2017 Question #23

WHICH RPG HAS THE MOST JAW-DROPPING LAYOUT?

Meh. 

I don't actually care for all the full colour, hard cover books the industry is cranking out these days. I'm not really concerned if the layout looks nice - I'm more concerned about being able to find things I want to look up quickly!