Thinking Outside the Box

This is the second squad of 10 from the 40k  5th Edition "Battle for Black Reach" starter box. L originally started them long ago and then they languished. I finally dug them out a few weeks before Christmas and put them on the painting table to get them finished. I didn't like that they were half-way (or less) done. I've got little to no intention of playing 40k any time soon, but with these finally done, it doubles my number of painted Orks. I've still got the rest of the Black Reach box, plus another Ork army box somewhere. It's actually a small force, with only something like 40 boys, but at this pace it'll take 40 years to paint them all.

The new demo team or sidekicks program for the Batman Miniature Game by Knight Models has rolled into its second month. I was happy to get accepted and have been trying to get rolling on some of the activities they have set for us. Each month we are going to receive a checklist of various things we can do. We haven't received the one for December yet, so we might be waiting until January for the next checklist. In November I was able to run a demo for a new player and play a full 350 rep game with a friend, as well as build a TON more figures from my collection. I'm confident that I'll have a Poison Ivy crew with Catwoman tagging along ready for the table top shortly. Our demo game featured Batman and Robin against Titan Bane and some Blackgate prisoners. The game played well and we got through a good number of the basics like movement, running, batclaw, attacking, blocking and shooting. When we were all finished we had a very good conversation about the models he...

I mentioned a bunch of items that I pushed across my hobby desk earlier this month, but here's a full recap of what I accomplished during the month of November. - Re-based two Heroclix for repainting: purple jumpsuit Luthor and Black Mask - Built Poison Ivy starter set for Batman Miniature Game ; started painting (4) - Built and based more serpent worshipper cultists (4) - Built new cultist minis for a brand new group, likely for Kulten (11) - Built safe box objectives for BMG (2) - Built all my Joker minis for BMG (14) - Built Arkham Inmates I booster for BMG (2) - Cleaned and based my remaining Threshold agents for Strange Aeons (9) In terms of painting I am nearly finished a 10-man Ork squad for Warhammer 40,000 . I also ordered and have received some stuff, but haven't had a chance to actually open the boxes for my Knights of Dice buildings & props or Ghostbusters Kickstarter pledge package. I've had word that my Pulp City ...

We've had a few games of SuperSystem 4th Edition  over the past few weeks. The first of the two was a three-player custom scenario. I had created a fun board layout to play a scenario around my converted repainted Lex Luthor Heroclix  figure wearing a prison jumpsuit. The basic intro for the players was simple. Lex Luthor was being transferred to a maximum security underground facility in a remote location. Just as the agents transporting him arrived at the surface entry gate with their prisoner, they were set upon by teams either trying to rescue Lex, or stop him from being set free. Brad was playing X-Men: Sunfire, Wolverine and Rogue. Seb was using Mister Sinister, Dr. Doom and Domino (no idea why these three were working together...), and I was using the Larcenous Legion: Kriegshunde, Elasti-Woman and The Wisp. I had converted the profiles for my characters from the official 3rd edition profiles to 75 points and I think they worked out very nicely. As with any new...

If you're like me there are times when you'd like to play a tabletop game but there are no available opponents around. I helped a little bit with some of the play testing for the 2nd Edition of Strange Aeons , but really hadn't played much since the book went to print back in the summer. Uncle Mike was really busy with model production that there was little time for gaming. Summer is also a lot lighter in terms of game time, as I do *gasp* *shock* try to spend a bit of time outside while the sun is being friendly. I've had my KS package from the campaign for longer than most, being able to pick it up locally rather than waiting for it in the mail. One of the add-ons I included was the solo deck. I didn't have much to do with this product at all, aside from providing some points about what I would like to see in a card-driven AI. With the product finally in my possession I thought I would give the solo deck a test-drive. I wasn't expecting much out of the sol...

I spent a quiet Remembrance Day at home and observed a few moments of silence being thankful for the freedoms I enjoy, not to mention that I wouldn't exist if my grandparents hadn't been brave, brave folks. The freedom I enjoyed on my day off was a relaxing breakfast with my girl and then a day of hobby time and conversation with a friend. I didn't get anything painted but it was a highly productive day in my opinion. First up was a large batch of cultists from Pulp Figures  for more games of Strange Aeons . These guys have been languishing in a box for a long while, and I figured it was high time they got some attention. I did some quick hand swaps and have four more dudes to add to my serpent man cult that I showed off years back . There were another eleven cultists from the same order and decided to put those all together as well. I'm pretty sure I know what I'm going to do with these, but I'll keep that to myself for now. There is a Black Sun operative...

Had a chance to play several new games through late October and early November. The first one was Epic Armageddon . Sean and Rick both graciously donated me pieces for a Space Marine army. We played a 4000 point game, with Rick running an Ork horde against Sean and I each playing 2000 points of marines. Since this was a learning game it took a LONG time, with us calling it after the second of four turns. This was my first foray into a smaller scale, and it was pretty neat. Since the other fellows have plenty of terrain I am doubtful I'll make any for the game. I will have to paint up the figures I have at some point, which really shouldn't take too long if I actually sit down and do it. I'll be using the colour scheme for my "Obsidian Fists" chapter, because well, why not? Next up were a few learning games of Infinity N3. Brad and I ran through the first three scenarios out of the the "Operation: Icestorm" starter book. There is a LOT of stuff ...

We played another game of Batman Miniature Game yesterday, finally adding in Strategies after having ignored them for quite a while. I played a new crew with Gordon, Catwoman, Bravo, Delta, Echo and GCPD detective against Green Arrow, Nightwing, Alfred and Policeman. As usual the scenario set up and objective placement took quite a while. It's one of the things that I dislike about the game, although I know we are getting faster at. We played scenario 5, which made a point of saying at least one objective had to go in an opposing deployment zone...which caused us a bit of confusion as the objective rules already state that for most objective types. Our 250 rep game took us a long time, over two hours. It was fun though. A few highlight points: - Bravo is a beast for in-close ranged combat. The shotgun hurts when it hits, and I hit quite often, almost putting Green Arrow down single-handedly. - Nightwing needed to find a group of henchmen to smash, but wasted his ti...

Director Silver lowered himself down into the creaky, worn chair and tried to rub feeling back into his numb left hand. It never helped. He used to be a much fitter man, but the omnipresent, squeezing ache in his chest reminded him that the years were catching up to him. Years in the field, followed by more years behind this damned desk, while good men and women were out doing the job he yearned to do. But the reality, reality of horrifying beasts, daemons and fool cultists was too great for him to be running around out there. He was needed here. Random images, sounds and even smells from the past still threatened to overwhelm him from time to time, when the nightmares and memories came to mind more clearly. He knew he was lucky, unlike most, he had survived beyond the extremely short life expectancy of an active field agent. Silver raised his head from his hands, not realizing he had even moved, and noted a small sheet of paper in the middle of his cluttered-but-neat desk. Folded ...

October was a fair bit lighter in the realms of completed work, but not an entire wash. Hobby: - Cleaned, based and primed six new SuperFigs . This batch included the very first model from the line that came in multiple pieces. My copy of SuperSystem 4th Edition also arrived so I'll try my hand converting these character profiles over from 3rd Edition. - Built and primed the last two (of three) western-themed buildings from PlastCraft . They are all quite similar in design, but mixed in with the rest of my buildings provide a nice amount of variety. - With all of my western buildings finally finished I was able to lay them all out on the table and decide what each of them was going to be, and what colours I'd likely use. I'm going to aim for having a decent amount of colour, but still look worn and weathered...it'll be an interesting experiment. - Built and primed half of the Infinity N3  models I have from the "Operation: Icestorm" starter b...

Wow it's been a long time since I started this blog. Over ten years. Most of that time has been spent writing about games and hobby activities, but occasionally I dive into event reviews, the odd rant and even gotten political a few times. All of that writing has resulted in over 75,000 page views. So I know some of you out there are reading this stuff, even if you're largely silent. I always have several posts in-progress and had actually resisted posting anything, trying to find the right item to include in my 500th post. Today I decided that it would be Pulp City . The guys from Pulp Monsters  are running a small campaign,  Pulp City: Cold War , to expand the rich world of Pulp City with two new teams of awesome looking supremes. I pledged on the new campaign because I think almost all of the new characters look amazing, and I want to support the game. I've been hard on them in the past because I'm still waiting for quite a few missing items from my Collector...

I've been working towards getting more of the superhero figures painted from Knight Models range for the Batman Miniatures Game. Yesterday I finished the second of two that will give me two completely different Law Forces crews at 250 rep each Batwoman is a character I don't know much about, but really like the costume of. The red on black is really striking, so I spent a lot of time getting some depth to the wide swathes of red on the cape. Highlighting large areas of black is not something I really enjoy, and I did have a bit of trouble getting her eyes right, but I'm happy with this one for tabletop. Next up is Catwoman. So much BLACK. It's hard to paint, takes a long time and is difficult to get a result I'm happy with, especially when compared with the studio paint jobs. There was a lot of watered down black paint, black washes, varying shades of blue dry brush stages and finally a touch of metallic and white for a top highlighting. Her face e...

I'm going to start this one with something I never thought I'd say...I've recently learned to play Pokemon . My oldest nephew had some cards with him when we all got together for family dinner over Thanksgiving. When I asked if he knew how to play he said "no." Thinking it a bit of a shame to have cards but not use them we downloaded the rules and gave it a go. I had to split the cards up into something resembling decks with almost no knowledge of the game, but we had a good time nonetheless. On Friday Knight Models announced their new "Sons of Batman" program (yep, SOBs) for the Batman Miniatures Game . I've been working towards getting enough models and scenery together to start demoing the game around my area soon anyway, so the timing of this announcement was almost perfect. I just have to take a few photos of my painted crews and submit the paperwork, and hopefully will get accepted into the program. Last weekend Lewis and I attended Fallcon...

If you have read my blog much in 2015 you'll know I've been spending a lot of time and money on the Batman Miniature Game by Knight Models . Over on the official forums there have been several discussions about whether the system would work for the larger DC Universe and accommodate games including characters like Superman and the Flash. Those conversations are usually split by folks who want more powerful characters joining in, and those who don't. Over the past few months' releases from Knight Models, I have a strong feeling that they are indeed working towards scaling up the game. I am actually open to this, and think it could work. However, I don't think the entire DCU will simply get rolled in as characters to play in BMG. The way I see KM introducing a DC Miniatures Game would be as its own rule set, but be entirely compatible with the Batman Miniature Game. Here's how I think that could work: 1. The stats on the DC characters cards will follow ...

The past week and a half has been really good for some gaming! Rather than focus on each play individually I'll just rip through them all in brief. During a quick trip to I had picked up a copy of a nifty little 1-2 player card game called Onirim . We both tried it a few times, ending up with the base game played as a 2-player affair. The game came with SEVEN expansions in the box, which we haven't tried any of yet. A lot of value in that little box though, and I am looking forward to trying a couple of variants soon. I also had a chance to try out a nifty little dice game called Art of War . Ironically enough I had been looking at this game on the same evening I bought Onirim, and damned near bought it. I may still do, but we'll see. I'm not sure how much fun it will be with smaller groups, but it was great with 6 players! Mid-week I got to play another 250 rep game of Batman Miniature Game . My opponent was gracious enough to let me try out my "Batman Beyon...

September didn't feel like a terribly productive month, but doing these progress reports serves as a nice reminder to me that I haven't been entirely idle. Let's have a quick recap! Modeling / hobby: - Fixed Copperhead broken during a demo of Batman Miniature Game . She also got a little more putty work done to really make sure the joins were looked after. - I prepped and based the Hell Division trio and more police figures for Empire of the Dead . I've also decided to include the "Gentleman Bat" figure (created by some top-notch fellows over on LAF) in this batch. Total of 12 figures ready for paint. - I applied basing materials to my 25mm Jaffa minis in hopes of someday getting my  Stargate  project further along. Total of 22 soldiers and the like. - All of my MDF western buildings from August got a spray coat of black primer. - Finished a bit of customization work to an o-scale train water tower model I bought a while back. - Sculpted custom bases ...

When Upper Deck announced that they would be reviving my beloved VS System  I was very excited. It was my first and only true love when it came to collectable card games, and I had run a local scene in my city for over five years, including keeping it alive for almost two years after the game had been cancelled. So when a friend brought the new VS 2PCG core set out for us to try the other day I was cautiously optimistic. As there were four of us we tried a 2v2 game. It didn't take long to get sorted out and look over the cards. Superficially they look almost identical to the old cards, but in terms of game play this is a very different game. I admit that it was only a single play, but I really disliked the change to resources. It felt so similar to Magic the Gathering to me in that the colours for resource felt like basic lands. That in itself is not a bad thing, but it soured me on the game almost immediately, as I truly dislike having to include cards that are basically ...

A little history Long ago I acquired most of a Pulp City  collection from someone over on the Lead Adventure forums. Despite getting screwed out of several figures it was still a pretty good deal. I painted some figures and gave the original rules a spin on my own to get a feel for the game. A few of my friends were mildly interested in the game, but I never got it off the ground. Last year Pulp Monsters ran a Kickstarter campaign to get their new Supreme Edition of the game printed and out to customers. After looking at the costs to add the models I was missing, I instead chose to go with the Collector's Pledge level as it ended up being almost the same price, but with twice the models. When it arrived a few months back I was very excited to see it arrive. Dampening my excitement was the sheer amount of time it took to sort through the bags of unlabelled figures, only to find that several things were missing. Both sets of my add-on dice, an entire set of cards, the resin m...

Years back I bought a good number of SuperFigs  from one of my local shops. They're a little bit dated looking, but I have to say that every time I paint one of them I enjoy the experience. The detail on them is nicely exaggerated; they really do evoke a comic book feel. I'll likely be picking up some more soon if I can find them. One downside to working with SuperFigs is that they are all cast with very large integrated metal bases. Every one I've bought has been too big to fit on a standard 30mm base. If base size is important to you, clipping and cleanup will have to be done in order to integrate them into your collection. It's worth the effort in my opinion. My favourite figure from the line is still Krieghunde, which I painted long ago and have used in several games with different rule sets. According to the SuperSystem rules available for the figures, he is a member of a team called the "Larcenous Legion." I picked up a few other figures who are als...

It surprised me when I looked back at the dates of my earliest Alpha Flight conversion posts. This has taken me nearly two years to complete, but with the addition of Vindicator I'm finally finished. Truthfully this figure has actually been fully painted for the past three months. Like the Bones strumpet figure she was simply waiting for a large enough batch of figures to be completed for a round of basing to take place. Like most Heroclix, the sculpt of the figure was relatively decent. Her hands and feet are a little too big but otherwise the pose is good, if covered with way too much paint. I stripped it off in some acetone, and shortly thereafter dropped the figure on the floor and busted off her head. A quick spot of glue made that problem easily forgotten Unlike my previous Guardian repaint, I shaded the white part of her suit with a grey wash which enhances the shadows. It's quite obvious when they're next to each other, but separately they both look good. ...

All of these figures are from the first Bones Kickstarter campaign from Reaper Miniatures. First up is one of the fantasy civilians. I've actually had this one painted for a few months, but she languished on the prep table awaiting enough other completed figures for me to do a batch of basing and static grass. More recently, after having done two batches of police I wanted to paint some single figures. So I decided to add some more folks to my western gaming collection. One of the two western figures from the campaign looked a lot like Zoe from Firefly , so that's how I painted her. I tried using more natural colours and think she turned out great. The other one looks quite obviously looks like Lee van Cleef. He was a really easy paint job and looks exactly as I'd planned. Unfortunately it wasn't until I'd primed him that I noticed the one pistol being bent. I tried the hot water trick after I finished painting, but it seems that the paint adds just en...

A bevy of new stuff has arrived at my door since the month started. In my excitement I didn't take much in the way of photos, but here's a quick recap. Mantic Games sent a combined package with the final pieces from the Dreadball Xtreme Kickstarter campaign. It included the season 5 and 6 books, loads of new teams, a campaign set, a lovely mouse-mat style Dreadball original board and all the stuff for building new teams and playing multiplayer in Dreadball Xtreme. The amount of stuff I have for these two games is embarrassing, and a little sad, since I've not played Xtreme yet despite having it in my possession since last December. That same package also included a few bits and bobs from the more recent Kings of War  second edition campaign. No army sets yet, but some tokens and templates, the KS-exclusive Blaine and Ronaldino the Bard all showed up. Additionally I received both the hardcover and the gamer's edition of the rule books. I have an older starter set ...

August was a really productive month. Between my other half away visiting family and me sleeping even less than my usual there was a lot accomplished. Modeling / Painting - I primed the remainder of the figures I'd built for Batman Miniature Game  (18 in total) - Finished painting the original hero miniatures for Guardians Chronicles - Painted my first figures for Batman Miniature Game : uniformed cops (5 figures) - Repainted two Heroclix : Barbara Gordon and Batman Beyond . There's a custom profile card created by me on the blog, but I didn't feature Barbara. Can you spot her in last month's posts? - Completed my entire batch of Law Forces for Batman Miniature Game  with four SWAT troopers and three officers (7 figures) - Added a full set of extra walls/fences to my Garden of Morr set and got it all painted up. Construction / Terrain - I touched up a western wagon toy given me by a friend. It looks pretty good, but I'm not sure when it'll make ...

Here's a quick post to finish off the month of August. I bought the Games Workshop "Garden of Morr" several years ago, with an eye to using it for games of Strange Aeons or possibly Empire of the Dead .  Some of these pieces even made an appearance in a game or two of Batman . A few months ago I had done most of the painting required on the fences, but more recently I added an extra set of all the walls from friend who had used parts for another scenery project. Some repair work had to be done on that set, as the spikes on all of the walls had been removed. I needed some patience but was able to glue appropriate pieces back in place. Some of them look like they've been bent down or replaced. Painting was accomplished largely through dry brushing using my standard colours for stone and dirt. I did use some P3 Cryx Bane Base to give it a bit of green before painting the foliage. I opted against painting all of the roses sculpted in, I thought it would look to...

I've been on a bit of a roll this week, getting a total of a dozen figures completely painted for the Batman Miniatures Game  by Knight Models.  Fast following the footsteps of my uniformed police I have completed the remaining Law Forces figures. The four SWAT officers and Branden started out with the same P3 Exile Blue as the uniformed officers. A light coat of black covered most of the rest of the figures. It was almost a wash, but perhaps a little thicker. I dry brushed this with GW Fortress Grey and then washed the whole lot with GW Asurmen Blue. After that I went back in and highlighted with Exile Blue and Fortress Grey. The blue got another highlight of a 1:1 mix of Exile Blue and Army Painter Shadow Grey. The detective in the back is essentially the same as the uniformed cops from last week, just with the trouser and shirt colours reversed. He and Branden got a basic five o'clock shadow with some GW Ogryn Flesh wash. The goggles and Gordon's glasses were p...

While I was working on my uniformed police for the Batman Miniatures Game  I also started to paint my Batwoman figure. Repainting a Batman Beyond figure from Heroclix  would be the perfect opportunity to test the colour techniques without potentially ruining a $22 figure from Knight Models . The sculpt for Batman Beyond is very good. He's almost perfectly in scale with the BMG figures and the paint only needed a bit of touching up. I covered the red of the cape with GW Mephiston Red and then a wash of GW Baal Red wash. That was followed by a liberal coat of the base colour, leaving some shadows in the recesses. For a highlight I mixed in some P3 Orange (probably about 1:1) and applied several, gradually smaller coats for a final highlight. It was difficult taking a good picture of this guy. Black is a colour that you could take forever painting, but I didn't have the desire to do much work on this so I went for a technique I've used in the past. P3 Coal Black dr...