RPGaDay 2021 - Day Eleven

Day 11 - WILDERNESS - LISTEN - HEAVY - DESPAIR

WILDERNESS - for some reason this prompt made me think go basing - like, miniature basing. Miniatures have ALWAYS been part of my role-playing - I mean, it was the little lead Tom Meier/Ral Partha miniatures that drew me to Dungeons and Dragons in 1980. Yeas ago (decades, actually) I worked towards a uniform basing scheme for all my miniatures regardless of period/setting. It was basically brown dirt with a couple clumps of grass - initially green flock, later static grass, still later pre-made static grass clumps - or brush or flowers, just to mix it up a LITTLE bit. As almost all of my miniatures were metal I based them on round metal washers (unless required to do otherwise by a ruleset - DBA/HOTT being the main one - where everything was on thin (1/8”) rectangular MDF multi-figure base, but it STILL used the brown dirt with grass, bushes, the occasional stone. This gave them all a look of being outdoors - in the WILDERNESS, if you will… For more modern or sci-fi miniatures, I would sometimes leave off the grass and such and try to smooth out the dirt a little bit to still mesh with other miniatures.. but also have a neutral brown look, should they ever need to be used in a more urban environment - or the interior of a spaceship! 

For the longest time I could not STAND plastic bases (I wasn’t really a fan of plastic miniatures either). They seemed so thick and tall - almost plinth-like making miniatures tower over other to-scale items that weren’t on bases. Terrain had to be exaggeratedly tall to make it look like the miniatures hiding behind them were actually in cover. In some cases it made them rather top HEAVY and tippy - if it were a larger metal mini on a smaller plastic base. (Oooh! I worked into one of the other prompts!) 

What irked me even MORE about plastic bases was the guys who painted the sides of them BLACK. I always felt that bases should blend and match the environment to make the figures on them stand out. The harsh contrast of the black sides stood out and just looked unfinished to me. Why wouldn’t you paint them to match the top of the base or what you expected the ground to be. 

All that kind of changed about four years ago when I painted some Warhammer Underworlds miniatures for John. 

The miniatures had highly sculpted bases, specific to the miniature that was to be mounted on them. I quite enjoyed painting them - the base was really an extension of the miniature - making almost a miniature diorama (something I’d tried to do with larger bases miniatures before (though still keeping with the generally brown, wilderness-looking bases). I also painted them with black sides. Mostly for uniformity/consistency. I mean there were different things going on on those bases and I couldn’t decide which colour to go with and, besides, they were to be used in a board game and the boards were mostly dark and greyish and black worked as a transition between the two. 

But that was for someone else. I stuck with the same old scheme for my own miniatures. 

Then I ended up painting Finnegan’s Terminators and Genestealers for the last edition of Space Hulk. The miniatures didn’t come with bases. I decided to put them onto bases partly so they wouldn’t be so tippy and partly so they would mesh with other 40K miniatures should they ever be USED to play 40K (or any other scientist-fi game). By the time I got to painting them, the latest version of Necomunda was out and the plastic under hive bases could be bought separately. So I did them up on those. 

I used the 32mm bases for all of them, as the 40mm ones weren’t available - which means the Terminators are on the wrong size of base for 40K… but… whatevs.. the 40mm bases would have been just too big for use on the Space Hulk rooms and corridors. It required a bit of carving away of some of the miniatures and, in one case, sculpting with green stuff to make the miniature work with the bases. I painted them grey with a bit of rust - including the sides - and they looked pretty okay…

Then I actually started PLAYING the new Necromunda. I had a few of the old metal minis - and sourced more of them through eBay to use with the game. 

Initially I used the standard metal washer to base them and did them with a neutral brown… but then just looked WRONG on the interior rusted metal looking boards… so I tried picking up a few of the plastic Necromunda bases and embarked on a massive re-basing project. 

I did the bases a bit differently from the Space Hulk. Some was grey and rusted - but there were bits of yellow and black hazard stripes and splattered look and pools of spilled substances. The painting technique I used on the sculpted top of the bases, just didn’t translate well to the smooth sides…. so… I ended up trying painting them black… and that didn’t bother me at all, I rather LIKED the look of it! 

I was also starting to play 40K and Kill Team again at this point and acquiring some plastic miniatures and using more plastic bases and started with using “Sector Imperialis” or "Sector Mechanicus" bases for a lot of miniatures - especially those part of dedicated Kill Teams (these are more sculpted plastic bases - but different from the Necromunda bases). All painted with black sides - to conform to the new standard and bring SOME consistency to them 

Then came Warhammer Quest: Blackstone Fortress and here I went completely off the rails, making my own bases to look like detritus in a ruined alien space fortress! (Also black sides) 

Non-wilderness bases have creeped into my fantasy basing as some new Skaven I started working on for Warcry, and other minis I’ve been working on for Frostgrave, I ended up trying to do with grey rubble of ruined cities. 

Most recently I even picked up some flagstone and cobblestone rollers from Green Stuff World… with some of these I started painting the sides grey, but later started painting them black - AND painting the sides of the newer bases I still did with wilderness-brown-dirt-scheme black - just so there was SOME element of uniformity between them (because I didn’t like the look of grey-sided bases next to brown-sided bases). 

I have a problem... 

I am a bit of an idiot… 

So… Wilderness… That’s my convoluted take on it… What does WILDERNESS or LISTEN or HEAVY or DESPAIR bring to mind for the rest of you?  

Raptors (and... Other Stuff...)

A few random (or... not-so-random, really) items rolling off the workbench...

I got some painting done yesterday while I was sitting around ALL FREAKING DAY waiting for a delivery that was supposed to arrive some time between 8am and 8pm (Spoilers: IT DIDN'T!). Now, I'm normally a pretty patient dude... and I get that it's a weird time... and... y'know... life happens...  but EVERYONE ELSE these days seems to be able to provide pinpoint accuracy in their tracking (i.e. what city your stuff is in - or between - at any given moment). This is stuff we ordered in April. It DID say 6 weeks... and... fair enough... times were weird. Charged our credit card and we waited. And a week ago we received an email saying our order was finally being processed. Then a day later an email saying it was being picked. Then a day later one saying it was on a truck and on it's way - expect it to be here Monday, 1 June 2020, 0800-2000... that's a pretty wide margin - compared to other delivery places... but, whatevs... it's not like there's anywhere I NEED to be - Oh, I do need to get out and get groceries... and it'd be nice to get out and go for a bike ride to get some air and exercise or whatever... but that could wait until Tuesday. I checked the tracking everyday - in case it changed to "out for delivery". I checked again Monday morning to see if anything changed.... and suddenly the tracking system wasn't working at all... Ah well. I'm patient... and I waited. Around midday the tracking system still wasn't up - but it said in the email, if there was any problems, phone or email or chat... except the phone line isn't working... They're no receiving emails... and the chat function isn't available...

So... what now... Do I just sit in my house and hope for the best and maybe it will show up today? Or Tomorrow? Or... MAYBE SOMETIME this week!? I mean, I get things are sometimes late, but seriously - would it kill you to send someone an email update saying "Whoopsie, sorry about that it will FOR SURES be there on Thursday..." or... whenever...

Sorry, I'll stop now...

So... back to the toys I painted yesterday WHILE WAITING AROUND FOR NOTHING!?

(Seriously.... I'm sorry... I'll FOR SURE stop now...)



Emperor's Children Raptors.

Not sure what prompted grabbing these... but I did... I thought I'd just knock ONE off quickly to see if my planned scheme looked okay... but then it kind of turned into two... and now the other three are almost done as well... expect them shortly...



Random Hive Ganger... or... y'know, she looks fancy (and clean), maybe she's some spoiled Spire brat  "slumming it" with the downhivers. The miniature is actually from I-Kore's old Void miniatures (I think) - with a GW Necromunda base...



The VERY LAST of the Space Hulk miniatures... It probably didn't really NEED a base.. but without it, it falls over all the time and would be more likely to get lost. So I added a base.

I finished off a few other things, but that's all one big group with a bunch of fluff... so it's going in it's own post...


Coming Soon to Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog:

3rd Squad, 2nd Platoon, B Company, 5th Necromundan Regiment

Servants of the Abyss - Traitor Command - Penitent

I actually got a bit of painting done the last few days - and listened to some more Horus Heresy Black Library Audiobooks... well... It was mostly a series of shorter audio dramas and short stories I was listening to this week.

I've finished the first five books in the series - though I listened to them out of order!? I listened to Fulgrim first (Book #5) because I wanted some background fluff for the Emperor's Children - which I was working on at the time. I didn't actually know it was book five... or that I had books one through four... I just started there... AFTERWARDS I checked to see where it was in the order of things - and which books I'd picked up in the Horus Heresy Audiobook Humble Bundle and discovered I had books 1-6 and 51-54 and a bunch of shorter stories from all over the place. One through five cover the beginning of the Heresy. Six, which I haven't read yet, is apparently a prequel of sorts that takes place 100 years earlier... so I'm not so excited to listen to that one just yet.

The painting I did this week was all 40K stuff and mostly focused on finishing up stuff for Warhammer Quest: Blackstone Fortress.



Not a Blackstone Fortress figure. This is actually for Space Hulk. We got the game for Finnegan for his Birthday five and a half years ago. I told him I'd paint the minis for him... that took.... Waaaaaaaaay too long!? I finished the Genestealers in April of 2018... and the Space Marine Terminators in August of that year... and played a few games around that time... and I think we may have stalled because I hadn't finished this little probe/drone or whatever it is...

So... Maybe we'll get playing Space Hulk again...?

Don't hold your breath.



Then, I finished up the rest of the Servants of the Abyss box - this is basically a frame of the same minis that come in the core box for Warhammer Quest: Blackstone Fortress (except there are TWO frames in the core box, so this essentially adds 50% more baddies!).

I picked up Abominable Intellect some time ago - it's a card-only expansion for Blackstone Fortress that is just a bunch of encounter cards... but with MORE STUFF!? and it was suggested that you would NEED more minis to make use of it... so I picked up the Servants of the Abyss.

Honestly, it often feels like the CORE set didn't come with enough. If you draw two encounter cards with the same type of hostile, you often don't have enough - if you draw three or four (happens more often than you'd think!) there will always be empty areas. Which, I guess, we just got lucky... It still feels a little cheat-y to not face as many hostiles simply because we didn't have enough of the minis...

Now I have more.

It will probably suck for our explorers...

Whatevs.

In the process I also did the Traitor Guard in such a way that They could be easily identified as part of different squads (we had a few times were different groups of Traitor Guard from different encounter cards got mixed up and weren't totally sure which to activate when. So I organized them and even repainted a few of the bases so they could be organized into three squads of seven, each squad with one of each pose.



first squad - with Necromunda or Imperialis bases.

IF I did anything iNsAnE... like... but ANOTHER Servants of the Abyss box... I'd split this and fill out a squad of each (one on NEcromunda bases, the other on Imperialis bases). But that's unlikely to happen. Ever. Even though I HAVE, obviously, considered it, at some point!?



The Second Squad is on what I'm calling my "Blackstone Bases" - with largely BLUE rubble...



The Third Squad, also on Blackstone Bases - but with largely PURPLE rubble...

While I'm at it... here are the rest of the Hostiles all together in groups...



The Ur-Ghuls - the new ones are the only ones that are REALLY different from the originals - I forgot how I did the originals and didn't study them to closely before doing the bonus ones... and also I'd changed the way I was doing "Blackstone Bases". There are rarely more than four in a group, though, so the originals can form any larger groups, and the others can form any secondary groups.



Spindle Drones.



Chaos Beastmen



Nega-Volt Cultists

that name always makes me giggle and think of NEGA SCOTT from Scott Pilgrim Versus the World!



Rogue Psykers



The Chaos Space Marines. I used a different head on the new one. I'd hoped I could find a helmeted head to use, but couldn't. So, I used a chaos mutant head. It's a horn on his head... it's a little hard to tell because it's pointed directly at the camera...



Servants of the abyss did not include an additional Obsidius Mallex (he was on a separate frame in the core box... and... why would you want a second one anyway? He's a unique main character!)



Some time ago I'd posted a few bonus Traitor Guard - just to have a few more bodies when I draw more than two Traitor Guard encounters... but decided they didn't look "Committed" enough with purple armour and some chaos sigils painted on their uniforms... so I added some spikes and horns and did one head swap... and painted one more... 

They look a little silly...



I ALSO happened to finish up the minis from the Traitor Command expansion set... so... once we're done the Quest for the Hidden Vaults we have ANOTHER choice of which to do next! (the other two being the Dreaded Ambull or the one from the Blackstone Fortress Annual 2019, involving the Master of Possession and the Two Greater Possessed)





Oh, I just about forgot! I also painted up this Penitent - which can be used as a Retinue Character, if ever the Brogan Brothers die... or we get sick of them...



Looks like I'm going to need a new drawer for any additional Blackstone Fortress minis (Like the miniatures from the Escalation expansion I'm working on next - along with the Cultists of the Abyss box - which is just MORE of the Cultists from the Escalation expansion!)

Currently Amanda and I are planning a double-header for Sunday - a regular expedition in the afternoon (just to pick up a few more clues - to locate the Hidden Vault!) and then the final challenge - the Hidden Vault itself!!! It looks... challenging... Very excited about it. I'd love to just play TONIGHT - but I've got other stuff to do! Like, get ready for TOMORROW (Saturday)!

Tomorrow, I'll be running the second session of Wrath & glory on Roll20. I ran a one-shot last week for a few guys and it was super fun so we decided to go ahead and try and play a regular campaign. This week will largely be finishing up character creation and working out some background. The characters all work for an Inquisitor - looks like we're going to have an Inquisitorial Acolyte, a Sanctioned Psyker, a Death Cult Assassin, and a Tempestus Scion.


Coming Soon to Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Sunday evening I should be posting a wrap up of May's Games.

If you missed them, Part One and Two can be found here:

May Games and Stuff - Part One

May Games (and Stuff) Part the Second

After that...? Probably the game reports for Sunday's Blackstone Fortress games. This might not be until Monday, though...

Space Hulk: Exterminate

On Sunday, Finnegan set up a game of Space Hulk for us to play while Amanda and The Girl were out. We had another go at Scenario #3: Exterminate. We played this back in August with me playing the Blood Angels Terminators and Finnegan playing the Genestealers. This time we switched things up and I played the Genestealers and he played the Terminators.

SCENARIO

This scenario is played in up to fifteen rounds. To win the Genestealers have to kill all the Marines before the end of round fifteen. For the Marines to win, they have to either kill all Genestealers by the end of round fifteen or clear the board and be in position to block genestealers from coming onto the board (if a marine is positioned within 6 spaces of a Genestealer entry point, no Genestealers may be brought on at that point.


FORCES

The Genestealers started with two blips on the table and got two per turn until they run out (10 turns - as there are 22 blip tokens).

The Marines get one squad of five terminators including
Sergeant Gideon (Thunder Hammer and Storm Shield)
Brother Leon (Assault Cannon and Power Fist)
Brother Noctis (Stormbolter and Power Fist)
Brother Scipio (Stormbolter and Power Fist)
Brother Omnio (Stormbolter and Power Fist)


THE GAME



The Lad getting things set up.



Battle Brothers Scipio and Omnio detect movement in their zone and set up overwatch positions.



Sergeant Gideon figures he and Brother Leon have things locked down in their sector and sends Brother Noctis to help Brothers Scipio and Omnio.



The Genestealers make their move - Brother Scipio mows them down with his storm bolter!



Detecting movement in their sector, Sergeant Gideon and Battle Brother Leon set up defensive positions.



"Prepare yourself, Brother! The enemy comes!" 



Brother Scipio is overwhelmed and lost...



Brother Omnio is also taken down just as Brother Noctis arrives. His situation looks dire.



After felling a half-dozen of the foul Genestealers, Sergeant Gideon is lost and Brother Leon is all alone in his sector....



This is less than halfway through the 15 turns, and I'm still getting reinforcements. I though the game would be all over... But Brother Leon held on - he began marching up and down the corridor - blasting all in his path...



...before turning and blasting all the Genestealers sneaking up behind him...



Genestealers coming at Brother Noctis from two directions!



Click! Click! Click! Brother Noctis' stormbolter jams!!



Brother Noctis quickly cleared the jam and tried to back into a room, so as to form a bottleneck through which the Genestealers would have to come at him one at a time.



Though he stood his ground bravely and slew many (well... a few...) Genestealers, Brother Noctis was eventually overwhelmed.



So it all came down to Brother Leon. AT this point, Finnegan's best hope was to bring it to a draw by surviving to the end of Turn 15... I think, at this point, we were at Turn Nine...



Bother Leon's Assault Cannon Buzzed loudly as it mowed down entire lines of Genestealers.



Having finished off Bother Noctis, the remaining Genestealers from that sector start moving up towards Brother Leon.



BZZZZZZZZT! Another line of Genestealers are mowed down in one direction, while another group tries to sneaky up behind Bother Leon....



Then Brother Leon turns to deal with those that would attack him from behind...



There were more than a few times I thought he was done for, but he just kept mowing down all that stood before him... !



Getting low on ammunition, and the genestealers just keep coming!

 

CLICK! CLICK! CLICK! CLICK! Eventually Brother Leon ran out of ammo for his assault cannon and the Genestealers finally got him!! I think it was Turn Thirteen!



In the game I believe 27 genestealers were killed - and Brother Leon accounted for 18 of those! I had only six left when we finally finished him off!

Another hard scenario for the Marines!


Coming Soon to Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog: 

Things have been dragging on the painting front. I haven't been super motivated to do much - a little tuned out from the last couple months of frenetic painting! I did finally assemble the Gellerpox Infected from the Rogue Trader Box and Magos Dalathrust, which I picked up, along with the Commanders Expansion for Kill Team on Saturday. I also have one of John's warbands for Shadespire on the workbench, which has been sitting half-painted for months now...

I've been wanting to get a little campaign for Kill Team started up, but life just keeps getting in the way. If not earlier, perhaps on Friday (If Wrath & Glory doesn't show up - the owner of my FLGS said he was given next Friday as a release date!!)

We have gotten in a few other games - so in a week I'll probably post a report of the other games we've played this month.