Ish

Should be available most of it. What time works for you?

Well, my copy of Oathmark: Battles of the Lost Age just arrived in the mail this morning. I think any hobby time I had planned for painting projects for today has been scuttled so that I can read this book.

Initial impressions are that the artwork is absolutely stunning. I’ve always had a strong preference for this style of fantasty by way of realism style, like John Howe’s or Alan Lee’s artwork for Tolkien. The book is quite clearly laid out, very easy to read and reference, and at $35.00 USD MSRP is an excellent value.

Oathmark is a “rank and flank” massed combat game, similar to WHFB or T9A, but with a lot less of the mind-numbing complexity of later editions of WHFB. Not “simplistic,” but definitely a lot more approachable.

Four things jump out at me right away that set it apart from competitors:

First is the “kingdom design” aspect: each player has a list of territories to choose from to build their kingdom – Human City, Elf City, Monastery, Caves, etc. – and each territory type gives you access to a different unit(s). You essentially write your own “codex” for your unique kingdom.

Second (and related to the first) is that your armies can absolutely be a mix of dwarves, elves, humans, goblins, and orcs. You can also go completely mono-species if you want. (We won’t judge you. You filthy racist.)

Third, there’s both a cap on unit sizes and on the number of multiples of a unit type. For example, most human-sized infantry can only be fielded in units of up to 20 and you cannot have more than four of those units. So you’ll never have more than 80 of a particular unit. Four units of 20-strong Elf Spearmen, for example, means a hard cap of 80 Elf Spearmen models.

Fourth, the game looks like it will play pretty swiftly. Suggested standard size game with several large units, several character figures, and/or monsters is 2,500 Points. To put that in perspective, the basic Human Soldier (who every Elf Soldier, Goblin Soldier, et. al. is either a bit better or a bit worse than for slightly more or less points) is 12 Points; A Human General is 260 Points; A Level 3 (out of 5) Human Wizard is 200 Points; and the most expensive single model in the game is a Dragon for 700 Points, 800 Points if you give it wings.

Anyone know anything about the FlashForge Adventurer 3? I’m seeing a lot of positive reviews, the price seems right, and well... I confess the idea of making D&D minis and dungeon tiles with a printer named “the adventurer” has a certain appeal.

Is he wearing a tam o’shanter?

Cue the battle music, lads!

It’s here! It’s here! It’s really here!

“Hassan chop!”

My little wood box village from last week continues to grow. I’m having a bit of trouble getting the peaked roofs for the other two small buildings to cooperate, but nothing a lot of hot glue and foul language can’t fix.

There will be two houses/shops with peaked roofs (I might add dormers to one) and the Green Dragon pub with the flat roof. I’ve used one of the two larger drawers “right side up” for a walled garden (which would also make a good grave yard, if I add a few tombstones).

The “walled garden” still needs some brickwork to cover the tops of the walls. I may need to raid the clubhouse bitz boxes to get some of those old Chaos Rhino spike strips for added grimdark.

I’ve got one more large drawer to use, but I’m not sure what I want to do with it... 

Wait... Imperial Fists Aggressors with flamers!? Are you insane!? 

I find your tidiness... disturbing.

This weeks project is my unit of samurai, intended originally to be a proxy Greatswords unit for Warhammer; now that I’m repurposing these guys for The 9th Age they’ll be Imperial Guard.

Taking a cue from @TheBeninator’s Kingdom of Equality-tane I thought I’d make the unit a lot more colorful than my blocks of ashigaru. So while the peasant foot-soldiers all wear a uniform armor in the color of their lord, the samurai will each be unique... Which means this unit is taking forever to paint. It also kinda looks like multicolored garbage now. I’m hoping that once they’re all done and I can do their bases, that the common basing will tie them together.
 

When you say the Warscryer Citadel is “partially NoS,” how partially are we talking?

I’m interested in a lot of the terrain you’ve got on offer.

1 hour ago, Salty Monkey said:

I'm kinda envious of the organization of everyone's space so far...

There’s a reason my pic was so closely cropped.

Hollywood armorers have pretty much standardized on the 9×22mm Pistole Automatik Knall (a.k.a. 9mm P.A.K.) cartridge.

Although a creative gunsmith can make anything from a flintlock to a belt-fed minigun replica that will fire them, it’s a lot cheaper and a lot easier just to use an off-the-shelf weapon already chambered for 9×19mm Parabellum (a.k.a. 9mm Luger) rounds.

Which means that you’ll see a lot of people in film and on television using 9mm pistols that have absolutely no reason to have one. You also see a lot of substitutes, like the Star Model BM pistols (in 9mm) standing on for Colt M1911A1 (in .45 ACP) in World War II movies.

Blame it on my mucus trail....

In other Gastropoda related news, whilst helping my daughter browse Etsy for doll customization stuff, I found these adorable little doll house snails. At $15.00 USD per, they might be a bit spendy, but if you added a couple to the base (or maybe even perched on the helmet) of infantry champions or foot-slogging heroes, they could help tie them to the rest of the theme.

The handmade My Lil Pony cutout is a vital part of my process.

19 minutes ago, Pecksata said:

I want to see this done at OFCC

There will be no OFCC. It’s cancelled. We are all living in the endless lockdown. It is currently March the 97th, 2020.

Around Christmastime, Hobby Lobby and Michaels both stock this stuff. I used it for the bases of all my Imperial Guard, back in the day.

It comes out of the tube with a sort of toothpaste consistency in a bead about the thickness of a piece of spaghetti. But as it drys, it kinda mushes into itself... Not unlike Citadel’s Stirland Mud basing paint. You just sort of squirt it on, maybe make some thicker piles here and there, and twenty-four hours later you’ve got great looking ankle-deep snow. Bright white, with just a little bit of glint. Dries rock solid too.

The final result isn’t quite as nice as the fancier artificial snows on the market. But it’s good enough for tabletop standard, durable, and cheap! A $4 tube should easily cover 20-30 bases. 

That’s a lot of very choppy dakka.

So, I’ve got several of these little wooden boxes kicking around. They’re old drawers from a cheap desktop storage thingy that I got at Ikea or Target or someplace ages ago... I decided to put them to a more productive use.

From the foundation...

...to the final result!

Okay, so admittedly a Germanic half-timbered construction doesn’t make much sense with a flat roof, but 🤷‍♂️

He posted two identical photos. You know what that means:  Twins they were are!

When the viral apocalypse is over, I’ll hit the neighborhood craft store for some jewelry chain to make reins for the driver. I might also add a base for it in the future, but other than those details, I’m calling my war elephant done:

The wizard figure comes from that same line of random Chinese miniatures. I’ve based him separately so he can be used on foot or mounted on the elephant.

A sacred jade statue on the back of an elephant leading an army of samurai and ashigaru into battle? No, it makes no logical sense. But considering they’ll be fighting dwarves on giant snails and anarcho-communist medieval serfs, I think we can agree to overlook logic.

For the jade effect, I used Rustoleum Camouflage Army Green, followed by a dry brush of Citadel Layer Gauss Blaster Green (going intentionally heavy in some random spots and lighter in others), followed by a heavy wash of Citadel Shade Biel-Tan Green. 

For Orc skin, I use the Army Green spray, followed by a wash of Biel-Tan, followed by a dry brush of Citadel Dry Niblet Green. I used this recipe recently for The Hulk.

Army Green spray followed by a Biel-Tan wash without any dry brushing (and maybe a “pin wash” of Nuln Oil in the deepest recesses) gives a perfect Dark Angels power armor, 

For a nice WWII “olive drab,” I use the Army Green spray followed by Citadel Shade Seraphim Sepia.

The entire Rustoleum Camouflage line of sprays paints is magic if you want anything with an earth tone. They go on nice and thin, bond great with plastics and pewter, and have a lovely matte finish with an almost imperceptible sandiness to the finish that makes them drink up washes.

I love ‘em.

7 hours ago, Andrewgeddon said:

Love the jade, looks great!

Rustoleum Camouflage Army Green. It’s magic in a can, man.

Adding some “jade” to my samurai army.

First is an Imperial Guardian Lion (a.k.a. Foo Dog) statue to serve as unit filler or an objective marker.

Second is a large statute that will serve as the focal point for my war shrine.

Whichever white will work with Contrast paints.

I can’t speak to any of the drama around SR6. I own a copy of the core book, have played a dozen or so game sessions of it, and think it works just fine. It’s got flaws, but I think they’re mostly issues with layout and formatting. The system works great, the book just does an incredibly bad job at explaining how the system works which is the primary job of a @&$# rulebook!

But, I digress...

I can’t speak about Cyberpunk Red because I haven’t red read it, let alone played it. Nor do I know anyone who has. But I have some fond memories of the original Cyberpunk 2020 that I’d be willing to give it a shot if someone were to ask me to join a campaign.

But, personally, the cyberpunk roleplaying game that intrigues me the most right now is Infinity The Roleplaying Game from Modiphius. It’s based on the miniatures wargame and thus benefits from having a very well established universe as its backdrop. With all the corporate espionage, political intrigue, computer hacking, info wars, and cyborg-ninjas getting into katana duels that you could ever want.