Thinking Outside the Box

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 ...