Scratch Building and some Painting... and Something Else

 I hope everyone had a fine Christmas and that Santa was good to you. I my sisters and their families were in town and we had a great time. Before everyone arrived though, I was able to finish up the terrain pieces I had been working on and I also put my final touches on some minis I was working on. 

First up, those minis.

A recent delve in the garage turned up some old GW minis, two Necromunda models from around 2000 and an Empire Champion from I don't know when. He's plastic and thus isn't terribly old. The Sniper is a much more recent Reaper Bones model. I figured the Necromunda guys would be fine for Stargrave and the Knight would be a useful addition to the Kings of War Vanguard stuff I have. I really enjoyed the trial game I played and have been wanting to take it for another spin.

The terrain pieces turned out nicely. Some spray paint and drybrushing and bam, job's done.

I really should make four more of these to ensure I get good table coverage. I'll get cracking on it this week I'm sure.

Of course those hills are going to have a little competition in the garage. My next guitar project is now to the point where it's going to start taking time and energy. I picked up an Epiphone Les Paul Jr body on eBay a couple months ago. I had a good bit of hardware already and got the rest in my Christmas stocking. I decided that the guitar, instead of being painted, should be stickered. I got at least a hundred stickers yesterday to add to the collection I'd already begun. Yesterday afternoon I spent about three hours doing this:

The stickering was a lot of fun. Next step with that will be applying a heavy dose of clear coat over those stickers. 8-10 layers should be OK. After that's done, it's on to the electronics! 

Be well, and if I don't post again this week, Happy New Year!

Scratch Building

 In the interest of keeping the Stargrave campaign chugging along, I've found that some of the scenarios have some implied terrain requirements. The "Fire Moon" scenario looks like a good candidate for our next outing so I've begun work on making some suitable bits. 

This is of course the implied mental image we'd all have with such a setting. Very iconic, very dangerous and not just a little bit awesome.

The scenario requires an "X" of lava floes corner-to-corner on the tabletop. I'll accomplish that cheaply and easily with long strips of orange fabric. I'm not going to go gangbusters on lava-like rivers that will very rarely see the tabletop. Being Stargrave, there needs to be a lot to hide behind. To that end I got cracking on some foam rocky outcrops and "plateau" hills last evening with the hot wire foam-cutter. 

And after maybe 90 minutes and some probable brain-damage from the fumes, voila! Four bits that should work nicely. The larger bits have caves cut into them because that's fun. I glued sand to upper surfaces to give them a bit of texture

I tested some scraps with spray primer I had and the insulation foam didn't immediately disintegrate, to might delight. This morning I hit the two smaller pieces with a coat of primer - we'll see the results when I get home and I'll blast the two larger pieces at that time. 

  Because I was in a productive mode last evening, I also knocked out some homemade "Magmites," the aliens present in the Lava Moon scenario. A few red pipe cleaners glued to some old cardboard counters/markers, a dark gray spray coat and pale orange drybrushing and bam, job's done. 

Since they live in magma, I figured eyes and antennae would be useless. They're wormy and monstrous and will certainly get the job done!

More pics as things progress. Merry Christmas if I don't post again very soon!

AAR - Stargrave Saturday (Game 1)

 We started our Stargrave campaign Saturday afternoon with an outdoor get-together on my patio. The weather was cool but otherwise quite pleasant. Wayne, Ziggy and Mike were able to join, Mark and David having other commitments. Because it was essentially everyone's first game of SG, we played "no specific scenario" so we could learn rules and figure out what we're doing.

The table. It's 48 inch square area. There's a raised area 18 inches deep into the table. Loot counters are scattered hither and yon.

My crew and starting corner. That's Bruce Dickinson and the Local 151. Captain Bruce is a Tekker and his 2IC is a Rogue. Turns out The Tekker / Rogue combination was terribly popular; Ziggy's and Wayne's crews were both Rogue/Tekker. Mike's is a Veteran/Tekker. Everyone loves movement Powers and Drones!

Today's motley crew.

My Runner, Scoop, was able to get to a Physical Loot counter (the bolt & nut) and begins extraction. Katie Kaboom makes her way towards a Data Loot that's not in frame. She's a Codebreaker, ideal for going after Data Loot.

She makes it to the Data Loot but of course flubs the unlock roll! Mike's crew of militant goons is bearing down on me. 

Up top, Ziggy's got a guy making it towards a Data Loot. I guess I won't be getting that one.

Wayne's crew pushes across. His captain in front of the pond is working on a Data Loot while his Drone drops a claw down to grab a Physical Loot near the yellow drums in the center. The 2IC is trying to figure out how they're going to get the PL from atop that blue box.

Katie Kaboom is feeling rather lonely over there! She'd be knocked out a moment later.

Meanwhile, it's a robot shoot-out in gumball alley. Mine get's the better of the Sniperbot, hitting it twice, then scuttling away. These two droids now officially have history.

My 2IC and his cohort continue to maneuver around up top while Mike's crew nab the DL below. You can see (only just) that I've sent my Captain down to deal with the problem. Bruce is the one with the green batman-wings. He's accompanied by recruit Jesus Rodriguez (the octopoid alien)

Ziggy's captain heaves a grenade at my 2IC group, wounding Roy and the Medic, Beverly. Casecracker Sweet Mama String Bean was OK. You can see below that Jesus had taken a beating, poor fella.

Beverly Kills uses her action to un-stun Roy who darts over to Zig's Captain and opens up a can of whoop-ass.

Mike pointing out where he's aiming a grenade. Bruce had given chase to pretty much all of Mike's crew and he was doing everything he could to slow me down.

It's nearly over... We agree that the game will and after turn 7. 

At the end of the day, we all had a great time. My casualties included Recruit Jesus and Codebreaker Katie, both of whom made full recoveries. Roy Christmas, my 2IC was taken out in the last turn, Robocop-style by Wayne's crew. He was badly injured but he'll be back. I only secured a single Physical Loot which turned out to be a Hardsuit worth 200Cr. I'll probably hawk it since I have no treasury. I did have a successful run though, with SIX knock-outs and four successful Power activations. That's good for 200XP, enough for two level increases. I'll figure those out later.

We're all looking forward to the next for sure! If I don't post again before next weekend, Merry Christmas everyone!

AAR: Holiday Season on the Tabletop

 It's not what you're thinking, this is a real battle of holidays! Christmas versus Halloween!

Wifey and I played a long-delayed game of Dragon Rampant on Saturday evening. The featured armies were of course her undead horde repping her favorite time of year, Halloween. I was commanding the forces of the North Pole, Santa's own, the Christmas Army. I actually painted up the Christmas crew a few months ago and just never posted their pictures on the blog so this was their big unveiling.

Most of the models are Alternative Armies (snowmen and trees) while the reindeer and workshop elves are Splintered Light Minis.

We played on a bifurcated 4 x 4 table, decorated to match our forces' themes.

The chose scenario was the Crystal Gale. Ten crystals were scattered across the battlefield. Each was worth a victory point in addition to whatever we might score slapping around each other's armies. We typically do no fiddle around with quests.

Both armies had very successful activations in the early going. The Halloween army's speed was on full display as the griffons, spirits and nightmares swept out capturing crystals swiftly. On my side of the table, well, things were moving as slow as Christmas!

This isn't good. The blasted spirits capture a crystal on my side of the table.

My wild-charging reindeer weren't too put off though as they charged up the hill smashing into the host.

Action in the middle really starts to get going.

The spirits' own wild charge leads them to a dark place - my elves (bellicose foot) are assaulted and moments later return the favor, wiping out the ethereal host.

More underhandedness as the nightmares snatch up another crystal on my side of the table! Fortunately for me, they halted just in front of a mob of snowmen who pelted them mightily with snowballs!

Seeing the fun that their brothers were having, the snowmen on the other side of the frozen pond also heaved rock-laden snowballs at the vile riders!

Back on the right side, the reindeer make a feast of the griffons!

In the center, those psycho elves crash into skeletal heavy infantry. The skeleton host was up to the challenge.

The reindeer make it into the Halloween backfield and crash into the archers.

But alas, the archers were up to the challenge and ran off the mighty elk, pin-cushioning them as they fled.

In the center, the skeletal infantry made mincemeat of the workshop elves and the remaining nightmare rushed over and finished them off. Skeletal beastmen cause major problems for my snowmen off to the left. This isn't going well for me all of a sudden.

The nightmares are wiped out, my snowmen, trees and the Wizard of Winter figure out how to deal with the skeletal infantry.

Well that sucks. They had roughly a snowball's chance in hell of success. Both snowman units are in retreat now!

The right-hand unit flees off the table, while the other unit rallies, then takes out the remaining beast skeletons with a fusillade of snowballs! The celebration didn't last as they were quickly run off by the other skeletons.

The Wizard of Winter steps in and needing 5's and 6's to hit, produces the abomination you see here. Wiz was run off.

The trees show up and finish the job.

It's down to the skeletal archers on Halloween's side. They have little trouble running off the Wizard of Winter. Gah!

The trees gradually make their way to the killing machine that is the skeletal archers, nickle-and-dimed the whole time, losing strength points as they lumbered they way over.

Those archers were fill of piss and vinegar and fought like sugar-buzzed seven-year-olds. The trees..

Were no more.

A solid win for the forces of Halloween. This was a quite enjoyable game with two evenly-matched armies. I had nothing for the undead's early speed and being a net -4 of crystals early in the game was brutal. I was pleased to get some great results out of the snowmen's "short-ranged projectiles." They were a thematic addition, representing snowballs but I ended up with many opportunities to use them. My wizard this game was the discount "Wizardling" with which you only get to select three spells instead of having the full slate available. I think I preferred that in all honesty; in my experience spell casters don't spend a ton of time successfully casting  spells in Dragon Rampant and saving the two points worked out nicely.FWIW, I selected "Almighty Prod," "Stronger Shields," and "Heal Thee."

Next Saturday is Stargrave. Looking forward to that for sure!