April 24, 2015

Pulp City - Night Fright and Doom Train

Welcome back for more insanity from the world of Pulp City! This time it's a pair of villains from the Necroplane.

When I received these figures Night Fright's board was glued down flat to an untextured base; not exactly an inspiring presentation for such a great looking figure. I wanted to make him look like he was flying, which meant removing "Leech" from his super-glue prison without damaging him and finding the right base to achieve the effect.


I chose one of the resin bases I had in my bits box. I'm actually not sure who made it, but there are a few casting errors and bubbles on it if you look really closely. They're of little notice now that it's all finished. The angle of the wreckage on the one side had enough surface area that I thought I'd be able to glue part of the board down to it. I drilled a hole in the base, another hole completely through the board, and finally a small one into Night Fright's foot. With some luck my plan would provide the model with plenty of stability yet look airborne.


I glued the pin, board and Night Fright together, keeping the base separate so that I could paint the model before joining it to the base. My basing plan worked, and the board looks like it's hovering over the ground. Score a hobby point for me! It'll still need to be handled with some care yet it feels as solid as it can being connected in this way.

For his colour scheme I didn't have a specific plan in mind and just set about choosing or mixing paints as I went along. In the end I think he turned out quite well, looking appropriately ghastly. The glowing effects on the board aren't great, but for a first attempt at object source lighting I'm happy enough with the results.



The other figure from the pack is Doom Train, an obvious counterpart to Iron Train from the heroes starter set. An undead monster housed in a suit of armour made up of an old locomotive. Neat idea!

The model is a rather heavy torso supported on some rather boney legs (literally). I was going to pin the shoulders and knees for stability but some of the pieces were pretty fine and I didn't know if I'd be able to do it. In the end I opted to trust the power of my super glue. The resulting pose has a substantial backwards lean, although it still looks good from most angles. It seems to give him a sense of movement to my eyes.


Like Night Fright I didn't have a specific plan for painting Doom Train. It started out with grey primer, working up a bit of bone and metal in the obvious spots. Not liking how it looked at that point I went over all of the armour with flat black then dry brushed it with some gunmetal. Add a bit of bronze and greens to contrast with the skin and bone finished off the paint job to a satisfying effect.

At one point I actually considered scrapping the whole paint job and starting over. I'm glad I didn't do that, because once I'd taken a break from the painting and come back to it a few days later I was truly happy with the results I had achieved.


April 19, 2015

Calgary Dreadball League - Match Report

I just realized that I haven't been posting my match reports for the CDBL season 2 games played by my Keldoran Krushers. I'll make sure to provide some pictures for the next one, but in the meantime here's the round 4 match report:

Monsters vs. Monkeys

The Krushers hosted the Dread Monkeys in an early Sunday game. The Zee team was firmly the underdog and used their substantial bonus to hire a Nameless guard and Nightshade to help their efforts. The Krushers struck first, scoring a 2 point strike in the 5th rush.  In the 8th, Nightshade snatched up a loose ball and landed a 3-point strike in response. The fans at Krusher Kolliseum watched in stoic silence. Apparently the Dread Monkey fans all elected to stay at home for this one...

The cheeky little monkeys attempted to swarm the pitch several times, but the ever-vigilant refbot caught them red-handed every time. Test Subjects 3, 5 and 8 were all ejected from the game.

A last-ditch play in the 13th rush by Krusher's jack Bobby (#5) had the Dread Monkeys a little nervous, but he was unable to double the grab on a loose ball to make a scoring attempt. The Dread Monkeys would take a 1-point victory over the Krushers in a very entertaining, but surprisingly bloodless affair.

April 13, 2015

Two Sets of Rules for Batman, Which Should I Choose?

Now is a great time to get started with the Batman Miniatures Game by Knight Models. It is however, also a confusing time. The newly updated (and great looking) printed rule book has recently been released and folks all over the place are getting excited about the game. That means people are looking at the rule book vs. the free PDF rules available for download and starting to ask questions about which rules to start with.


Can I learn the game using the free rule book?

Yes you can. You'll get a feel for the flow of the game and its mechanics, but be prepared to deal with changes if you are going to buy the new book. If you plan to play in a small group with a few friends, there's nothing wrong with just using the free rules...but a few things will be missing so it could become increasingly challenging over time.

I intend to buy the rule book, should I start with the free rules?

This is how another local player and I got started, playing 3 or 4 games with the free rules. We were awaiting the arrival of the rule book but wanted to get playing right away. However, I've actually found that starting with the free rules and then moving to the printed rules while still learning the basic game mechanics has proven frustrating.


Several things have changed with the new book (remember, it's essentially version 2 of the rules!) and trying to remember what has changed and in what way is challenging. This was particularly evident yesterday when I was asked to give a local gamer a demo of the game. I had to dig through the rule book a few times because I was asked questions and knew that it was "slightly different in the updated rules."

So in short, I'd say if you intend to buy the book anyway, start playing after you receive it. I think it will make your learning experience a lot smoother. Order the book then build some models, lampposts or objective markers while you wait for your rule book to arrive! You'll need those regardless of which version of the rules you decide to play with.

Whatever you decide, you're in for some good Gotham fun. I'm happy with the game and am always looking forward to my next game!