Quite a nice banner, really.

It is doubly appropriate when the regional event for the Star Wars LCG is going on in the same venue at the same time, on a day when Fantasy Flight Games (FFG) previewed the third wave of ships for X-Wing at an event at their HQ.

The X-Wing miniatures game is one that I’ve been enjoying since it came out last year – the mechanics are pretty straightforward, with few grey areas, and it plays quite quickly. Those who turned up for our Kessel Run event last year – a preview event for the second wave of ships that FFG put on when there was a delay – seemed to enjoy themselves, and I was quite happy to run the regional tournament when Jim told me we had it.

The tournament format for the event was the standard Dogfight format FFG use for X-Wing tournaments at the moment – the full pack for which can be found on their website. In short, a player builds a 100 point fleet from ships on general release, and fights it out on a 3 foot square map amongst six asteroids. The objective is to destroy as much of the enemy as possible, whilst minimising your own losses.

Michael and Adrian face off in round 1

The one thing we couldn’t predict before the event was how many players we were going to get – while there’s been a fair amount of the game sold by Patriot Games, we haven’t seen too many people playing it in-store. After some discussion we thought we’d get eight to twelve players – so imagine my surprise when, as we closed registration at 11am, we had eighteen players registered for this tournament. In a handy coincidence, that was also the exact number of tables that Paul and his minions had prepared boards for over the previous couple of days…

Dogfights in full swing in the main room

Once I got round one paired up and under way, and the fleet lists had been checked, it turned out that there wasn’t a huge amount for me to do as judge – there are very few grey areas in the rules that aren’t covered in the FAQ, and I think that over five rounds we had exactly one query that needed to be looked at. It makes a refreshing change to have a game where you don’t have to worry about the rules being unclear, or have to roll off to see whose interpretation of a situation is correct…

Even a galaxy far, far away, slow drivers still cause problems in the space-lanes…

With eighteen players, and not having a top cut, this meant that we had five rounds to play through to determine an overall winner. As we had a nearly equal split between the Rebel and Imperial (boo, hiss!) players, with ten Rebels and eight Imperials, the players were certain to be facing a good mix of fleets across the day. While some fleets were similar in build, none were exactly the same, and every released ship was in use in one fleet or another.

The Battle of the Bobs

One incident that cropped up to amuse me during round 3 was the Battle of the Bobs – Rob Richmond and Rob Hayes facing off on table 9 to try to avoid the ignominy of the wooden spoon. As it happened, Rob H was able to beat Rob R, settling that match for this event, but hopefully we’ll see them face off again at a future tournament.

“Welcome to the Kuat Showrooms, Mr Fett – can we interest you in a test flight of our new Firespray-31 interceptor?”

I was impressed by the prize kit that FFG put together for the event – an iron-on patch for the top 16, acrylic focus counters for the top 8, dice/counter bags for the top 2 and a quite snazzy trophy for 1st place, as well as free entry into the x-Wing World Championships if you can make your way over to FFG HQ for them later in the year. Even last place didn’t lose out, getting a pair over over-sized, double-sided pilot cards, which were previously in the league kit. I do think you can make a case that the LCGs that FFG support are getting better prizes – the play mats for the top 8 in the Star Wars event were very nice indeed – but the regional kit was a definite improvement over the first game night kit to my mind.

There is one thing I think FFG can do which would make life a lot easier for X-Wing TOs moving forwards, and that is to sort out some degree of tournament software – even an Excel spreadsheet would be handy. While pairings were easy enough to handle with index cards, working out everyone’s Strength of Schedule at the end took up a reasonable chunk of time with eighteen players, which can be irksome if you’re trying to get home promptly after the event.

The trophy – please note that Jim’s hand was not part of the prize…

Once I’d totted up the points, then painfully worked out the strength of schedules for everyone, the final placings were…

* – Andrew Hartley beat Andrew Beadle in round 3, hence placing above him
** – Rob had to leave after round 4

Fifteen of the brave souls

And Marc’s winning fleet list was…
Alpha Squadron Pilot – 18 points
Alpha Squadron Pilot – 18 points
Mauler Mithel – 17 points
Backstabber – 16 points
Dark Curse – 16 points
Night Beast – 15 points
Total – 100 points

And finally, thanks to Paul Moore for making the boards; Jim Freeman for getting us the Regional in the first place; and the eighteen players who made our first X-Wing Regional such a success.

The post May the fourth be with you – X-Wing Regionals 2013 appeared first on therenaissancegamer.co.uk.

Instead, allow me to post my notes from the seminar I attended, along with the photos I was able to take now for your deliberation…

The seminar

I tried to take good notes for the session I was in (which was the second of three, as far as I’m aware), but I’ll fully admit I may have missed things. Fortunately, I was sat immediately behind someone who was making a video of the session, so you can watch the whole thing on YouTube as well. I did find it funny how often Ronnie & Jake conflated the names of DeadZone and DreadBall, mind you.

DeadZone

• The similarity between the DeadZone and DreadBall rules was deliberate – Jake tried different mechanics, but found that the ones from DreadBall did the job.
• The change in dice type from d6 to d8 was done to allow more flexibility in target numbers – particularly when it comes to shooting – without going so far as using a d10.
• When setting up default shooting difficulties, the assumption is that the target is in cover, which promotes movement. It also means that if you are able to get a clear shot at a target, it’ll be far more effective.
• They’re considering resin or acrylic counters as a future stretch goal within the Kickstarter.
• Alternative designs for the playmats are also being considered, but as they have to be ordered in blocks of 5,000 from the supplier, this may be tricky. Ronnie did say he may see if he can get the initial 5,000 order broken down into different designs (in, say, blocks of 1,000) but that is subject to negotiating with the supplier.

DreadBall

Jake gave us a bit of breakdown on how the fur teams for season 3 look at present:

• The Zee – Jake described them as “cloned monkeys in Las Vegas Roman outfits”. They’re very quick, and the referee can’t always tell them apart. This allows the Zee to have more players on the pitch than usual.
• The Teratons – Jake and Ronnie are a little surprised at their popularity. They can teleport around the pitch, and they can teleport whilst carrying the ball.
• The Nameless – John Doe’s friends have two types of Guard, one type that pins players, and a second that punches them. This encourages the Nameless to work in pairs or units to achieve victory.
• The Asterians – Jake described them as currently being pretty straightforward, “like a season one team.” Jake did say they were still being worked on, as he wants them to be “weirder” than they are at the moment. The presence of all three player types was confirmed, however.

Kings of War

After Jake had talked for some time, he switched out with Alessio for the Kings of War section. Outside of the points below, I did press Ronnie on making sure that all the models available to be ordered as part of the Kickstarter should be seen before the current survey finished on May 29th – Ronnie admitted he wasn’t happy that not everything had been seen yet, and did say that that would be the case. Having talked to Stewart Gibbs after the seminar, it appears that a number of the new models are still being worked on by Golem Painting Studios, hence the delay. I pointed out people would be happy with seeing the bare plastic/resin/restic, so we’ll see what happens.

The main focus of Alessio’s talk was the two books that he has been working on – Kings and Legends and The Basilean Legacy.

Kings and Legends

• Kings and Legends is a hero collection.
• Existing rulebook characters will be in there with new background (written by Andy Hoare), and it sounded like they may allow some degree of change to their army lists.
• There will be new characters for each army from the rulebook – they were described as being at the hero or champion level, as opposed to being at the level of destroying entire armies on their own.
• There will also be a new Ogre army list in the book, featuring new units.

The Basilean Legacy

• Described as being larger than Kings and Legends, and focuses on the Basileans. There are also two other army lists as an appendix, as well as new magic items and spells.
• Alessio described the Basileans as the Good guys, if viewed on a Good/Neutral/Evil D&D-style spectrum. However, as “super Paladins”, they may be a bit too Lawful Good – if something disagrees with their believes, it needs to burn…
• The Basilean background was written by Guy Haley.
• If the Basileans are the extreme of Good, then the first of the other army lists can be said to be extreme Evil – the Abyssals. They are meant to be quite Satanic, and Alessio mentioned Dante’s Divine Comedy as source material.
• The second additional army list could be said to be the extreme of Neutrality or Balance – the Nature army, with a strong elemental theme and ties to the creatures of the wild. Pixies, fairies, trees and druids were mentioned from the Nature side of things, while Sylphs, Gnomes, Salamanders and Dryads (I think) were mentioned from the elemental side of things.
• In terms of the magic item and spell appendix, it sounds like the spells are straight substitutions for spells in the rulebook. The example was given that there are six spells available to replace Zap!, and the caster gets to choose which spell from the six to use at the point they cast it.
• The magic items should cost up to 50 points, with a lot of 5-10 point items – one part of the design brief was that there shouldn’t be any uber-items. There will be 29 items in the appendix, and Alessio used input from the community as a base for the items. Where possible, he has tried to tie the name of the item back to the screen name of the person who suggested it – but if your name was Bob, you might be out of luck…

Pictures

Now we’ve got the text out of the way, time for some visuals for you. Unfortunately, the lighting in the room with the model case in was not that good, so my apologies if the pictures aren’t brilliant.

Dreadball

Alpha Simian – Dreadball season 3 multi-hex beastie

Teraton – sculpt 1 of 3 on display

Dreadball Teraton – sculpt 2 of 3 on display

Dreadball Teraton – sculpt 3 of 3 on display

DeadZone

Enforcer with Assault Blade

Enforcer Sniper

Greens of the Marauder Commandos

Greens of the Marauder Commandos, from the rear

Plague – First Generation

Grogan with Onslaught Cannon and Goatface (Sorak or Yndij)

Rebel group shot

Kings of War

Abyssal Dwarf Fire Thrower

Abyssal Dwarf Fire Thrower

The Basilean Cat Lord had gone to pieces…

Basilean Paladins

Basilean Paladins

Basilean Sisters with Flails

Basilean Sisters with Flails

Goblin Mincer

Goblin Mincer

Goblin Mincer

Mummies

Mummies

The post Mantic Open Day 2013 appeared first on therenaissancegamer.co.uk.

The blister, front and back – did someone order some roadblocks?

One quick observation before we get on to the contents – I really dislike this type of blister, especially for something that is light-weight and not going to be on a retail rack. I could understand using these if they were going to be somewhere the public could get at, to prevent the contents walking out the door, or if we were looking at a large metal model, to stop the blister popping open under the weight, but for these it feels unnecessary. Why do I dislike them? They’re a pain to open without a knife, and once you do open them the edge of the plastic ends up quite sharp. Give me a bag or a Privateer Press-style blister any day of the week.

After hacking through the plastic, what do we find inside? Well, asides from the three 20mm slot-free bases, there are seven resin sprues. One for the body of each figure, a head sprue for the Dragon Slayer, a sprue for the standard, one for the antler-style attachments to the top of the banner and an axe sprue shared by the Thane and Slayer.

The seven sprues of Dwarf goodness.

Initial analysis of the components hasn’t revealed any casting flaws, beyond a light touch of paper-thin flash where the halves of the molds would meet. This is the sort of quality I expect from a pressure-cast unit from Forge World, especially on a new kit. Having said that, there are a couple of channel placements that look a little odd to me – on the Slayer body, for example, why do the channels come in at neck and wrist, when the ones for the Thane and standard bearer come in through the feet?

Equally, for the standard itself, why does one of the channels end up in the socket for the antler decoration on the crest, while another crosses the nostrils of one of the boar heads (look at the middle and left vents on the above picture to see what I mean)? I appreciate that these may have ended up being the best way of getting flow through the mold, but they will make clean-up and assembly a little more tricky than they had to be.

The bend kicks in between the banner and the hand.

I’ve only really got one other area to critique, and that relates to the standard itself. One of the other Forge World kits I’ve got around the place is the Death Korps of Krieg Command HQ, where the standard was supplied with a piece of brass rod to use as the flagpole. This slots into the standard top, and through a hole in the bearer’s hand. This gives the banner additional strength, as well as preventing the pole from bending as the resin cures.

Unfortunately, this isn’t the case with this kit – nor, from what I saw at the Open Day, for the Goblin Command set or the upcoming Orc or Empire command sets. A lot of the time, this won’t be a problem, so long as you’re careful with the model. In a few cases, however, it can cause issues, either from breakages or warping – and while mine hadn’t broken, the pole had warped a bit.

Don’t get me wrong – with some hot water and some careful adjustments this should be easy enough to fix, but I do find it curious that Forge World have taken this opportunity to move backwards in terms of their design decisions.

I don’t want you to get the idea that I don’t like this kit, as I do, but I felt I’d better cover off what I felt were the downsides before we look at the high points.

Firstly, the detail is crisply defined on all the pieces, without the models having too much bling on them. Unlike Games Workshop’s newer efforts, Forge World seem to understand that sometimes less is more. Take the combat Thane, for example – aside from the boars’ heads on his shoulders, any detailing he has is functional, rather than just being there for the sake of it. This should mean that when I get a chance to paint him, I’m not going to need to worry about missing bits as I make a pass.

Secondly, the poses are simple, yet effective – unlike some character models, there shouldn’t be any problem getting these guys to rank up neatly in an infantry block. Of course, whether you want a Dragon Slayer in a unit, as opposed to off on his own, is another matter entirely, but to each their own.

Thirdly, the pricing on this unit is pretty respectable. If we take a look at the Games Workshop website, a combat Thane, a Battle Standard Bearer and a Slayer character will set you back £28.70, while the Forge World set is only slightly more expensive at £30. In the case of the Slayer characters, most of them are quite old sculpts, some of whom have been available for 18-20 years now. Forge World being able to compete on price with their parent company is something I’ve been aware of in Australia before now, but this is one of the first times I’ve seen it happen in a kit over here.

In short, I’d certainly recommend picking this set up to any Dwarf players out there – the sculpt quality is excellent, the models possess great character, and they offer pretty darned good value for a set.

The post Review: Forge World Dwarf Command appeared first on therenaissancegamer.co.uk.

While I was posting pictures from my phone, I also reached out to the guys on DakkaDakka to see if there was anything they specifically wanted better pictures of while I was there. Part of what is below has come from that, while others are attempts at getting better pictures than I managed on my phone.

Warhammer Forge – Merwyrm

This banner was up in the small section that seemed dedicated to Warhammer Forge, behind where Trish was based. Fortunately, this was next to the cabinet with a bunch of wee beasties in it…

Warhammer Forge – Troll Mother

Warhammer Forge – Night Goblin Squig Gobba

Warhammer Forge – Dread Maw

Warhammer Forge – Chaos Dwarf Bull Centaur Taur’ruk

Warhammer Forge – Orc Command

Horus Heresy – Emperor’s Children Palantine Blades

Horus Heresy – Whirlwind

Horus Heresy – Land Speeder

This is the mock-up of the “new” Land Speeder model.

Horus Heresy (I think) – Fellglaive

Horus Heresy – Legion Destroyers with Jump Packs

Horus Heresy – Mk IV Outriders

Horus Heresy – Rapier with Graviton Cannon, Rapier with Heavy Bolters

Horus Heresy – Legion Praetors

Horus Heresy – Sons of Horus Reavers

Horus Heresy – Night Lords Rhino & Land Raider Doors

Horus Heresy – Sons of Horus Contemptor & Components

IA12 – Canoptek Tomb Sentinel

IA12 – Necron Sentry Pylons

IA12 – Necron Tesseract Ark

I’m not sure how clear it is in the pictures, but there’s quite a lot of resin added on to the plastic for this kit – a bit like the Night Shroud bomber.

IA 12 – Hecaton Alakos – Power Armour & Contemptor

This seems to be the pre-Contemptor version of the character – I’m guessing all is revealed within IA12.

Display Board – Minotaurs & Imperial Guard vs. Necrons

Display Board – Pre-Heresy Zone Mortalis Barding Action – Salamanders & World Eaters

The post Forge World Open Day – Camera Pictures appeared first on therenaissancegamer.co.uk.

Given that I’m here, and not everyone can make it, I thought you’d appreciate some pictures of the new stuff that’s on display, as well as the participation games and such like.

I’ll be posting some “proper” pictures later in the day, but they’ll have to wait until I get home.

As with the pictures from the Mantic open day last year, I’ve not had the chance to watermark the pictures yet. If you want to share them on forums, feel free, but please quote this blog as the source.

Sons of Horus Reavers -WIP

Sons of Horus Contemptor -WIP

Rapier with Graviton Cannon

Typhon Heavy Siege Tank

Orc Command

Bull Centaur Champion

Legion Praetors (who were on a rotating plinth)

Horus Heresy Whirlwind – WIP

Hecaton Alakos, inside and outside his Contemptor – WIP

Horus Heresy Land Speeder – WIP

Necron Tesseract Arc

Three flavors of Necron Sentry Pylon

Emperor’s Children Palantine

Incarnate Elemental of Fire

Mk IV Outriders

HH Cerberus Heavy Tank Destroyer

Night Goblin Squig Gobber

Dread Maw

Merwyrm

Troll Mother – WIP

The post Forge World Open Day – Smartphone Pictures appeared first on therenaissancegamer.co.uk.

Here’s a set I prepared earlier

Of course, now you’ve built your sandbag wall, it is time to paint it – which we’ll take a look at this week.

 What You Will Need

• Chaos Black undercoat spray
• Tank Brush
• Detail Brush
• Paints – I’ve used Scorched Brown, Bestial Brown, Graveyard Earth and Kommando Khaki from the old Games Workshop range for the sandbags
• Appropriate paints for any other components added to the sandbags, such as the barrels and uprights in the example

Step 1

The first stage of painting the sandbags, after giving them an undercoat spray of Chaos Black, was a heavy coat of Scorched brown. This is also applied to the base, as a darkish muddy brown is going to blend in with the other sandbag sections I’ve done.

Sandbags basecoated in Scorched Brown

Step 2

A second coat of Scorched Brown is applied, just to make sure I didn’t miss any nooks or crannies.

Scorched Brown 2: Scorched Browner

Step 3

A 50/50 mix of Scorched Brown and Bestial Brown was drybrushed over the entire section. To be honest, it was closer to a wetbrush on the sandbags, but make sure the base is drybrushed – it’s the first highlight.

Yup, still brown.

Step 4

Bestial Brown was drybrushed onto the sandbags and base.

Lighter brown

Step 5

A 50/50 Bestial Brown/Graveyard Earth mix was drybrushed onto the sandbags, but not the base.

The bags start to head towards a canvas colour

Step 6

Coat #1 of Graveyard Earth was applied.

Nearly getting the right colour on the bags

Step 7

A second coat of Graveyard Earth goes on to even things out.

Getting the right colour took longer than expected

Step 8

A 50/50 mix of Graveyard Earth and Kommando Khaki is applied as a first highlight.

Starting to highlight

Step 9

The first coat of Kommando Khaki goes on as a second highlight.

A level lighter

Step 10

A second coat of Kommando Khaki is used to finish the sandbags off. Now we can take a look at the extra elements we added to the base.

We’re there – sandbags done!

Step 11

The crate, girders and bolt pistol are re-undercoated with Chaos Black. The crate is then painted Midnight Blue, and given a Blue Ink wash.

Everyone needs a crate

Step 12

The crate is highlighted with a Regal Blue/Midnight Blue mix, thinned with Blue Ink. The girders, bolt pistol barrel and hinges of the crate are painted Boltgun Metal.

Adding some details

Step 13

The girders were then given a wash of Chestnut Ink, and the barbed wire was attached. The barbed wire was sprayed black, drybrushed with Tin Bitz and then drybrushed with Boltgun Metal. It was then coiled around 3 or 4 paint brushes, and glued onto the girders, and the tops of some of the sandbags.

CAUTION: Barbed Wire

Of course, one problem with using the old range is that you can’t really get hold of the paints any more. So, I’ve included a table below with the paints I’ve referenced above, their rough equivalents for the new paint range, and any Coat d’Arms equivalents – I’ve used the Paint Range Compatibility Chart on DakkaDakka as a source for this.

The post Sandbags at Dawn – Part 2 appeared first on therenaissancegamer.co.uk.

What You Will Need

• 5mm Foamboard (or other thick basing material, such as corrugated card).
• Milliput or alternative modelling putty. I’d recommend against Green Stuff, as its too expensive to waste on sandbags.
• Modelling knife
• Sculpting tool
• Basing material (I’ve used bird sand)
• PVA Glue

Optional Components

• Ammo crate (such as from the Battlefield Accessories set)
• Length of sprue and Forge World barbed wire
• Spare weaponry

Step 1

The first thing you need to do is prepare your base. I’m using 5mm Foamboard for this, as it is light, sturdy and fairly cheap. It also doesn’t need to have the edges filled, my main gripe with corrugated cardboard as a basing material. For a six inch section of sandbags, your base needs to be roughly 6 1/2″ by 1 1/2″.

Once you’ve cut out your base, mark out the central 6″ by 1″ section. This is where we will be placing the sandbags. A square edge on the base of a piece of terrain doesn’t look right, while a sloped edge helps the model look natural and fit in to the look of the battlefield. Using a modelling knife we need to bevel the edge of the base, using the section we just marked as a rough guide to the top edge. It doesn’t matter if you don’t follow this exactly, and in fact will look slightly more natural if this is the case. When finished, you should have something like the picture below.

One base, for one set of sandbags

Step 2

Now we have the base sorted, we need to think about the elements we want to include in the sandbag barrier. Realistically, a stretch of sandbags is likely to include other elements in it, either to make it more difficult to destroy or to reduce the workload the Guardsmen would have to put in. On this stretch of barrier, I’m using an empty ammunition crate from the Battlefield Accessories sprue, as well as barbed wire along the top of the barrier. The crate is there as a reinforcement, while the barbed wire is there as a deterrent. For some smaller detail, I’m going to include an entrenching tool and a discarded bolt pistol – possibly from a previous attacker.

Most of these elements won’t appear on the model until the sandbags are complete, but the crate and the supporting frame for the barbed wire can be included now. I’m going to put four poles as the frame for the barbed wire, which will be glued both to them and the top of the sandbags when the time comes. The poles were made from lengths of plastic sprue about 3.5cm long, with any extrusions or code numbers removed with a sharp modelling knife. The crate will then be positioned around the poles, as shown below:

The basic framework for this stretch of sandbags

Step 3

With the structure of how we want the barricade to look set up, we can now start to model the sandbags. First off, mix a batch of your modelling putty, following the manufacturers instructions. With Milliput, I tend to use 1/2″ of each stick as a batch. Once the putty is thoroughly mixed, roll it into a cylinder roughly 1/2″ thick. Now for the fun bit.

Using your modelling knife, cut a piece off the cylinder – usually around 1/4″ – 3/8″ is enough for one sandbag. Using your fingers, shape the putty into a rectangle about 1/2″ wide, and about 3/4″ deep. The sandbag doesn’t have to be very thick, only around 1/4″. When you are happy with the sandbag, use your modelling knife to mark a seam around the edge of it, then put it into place. While you can leave fingerprints in the sandbag, I tend to think they look better without fingerprints. You can use your modelling tool to remove these by dipping the curved end in some water and smoothing the surface of the putty. When placing sandbags around the poles we put in as support for the barbed wire, try to bend the sandbags around them. With one sandbag complete, you should have something like this:

First sandbag deployed…

Step 4

With one sandbag complete, we continue until we either run out of mixed putty or we’ve completed one layer of sandbags. If you have completed a layer first, you probably mixed too much putty. Once either of these conditions is met, leave the putty to set, again following the manufacturer’s instructions. Once you’ve completed a batch of putty, you should have something like this:

Setting the base in place

Step 5

The second thing the sandbags do here is they anchor the posts down; if you look, even though they were glued to the foamcore, they weren’t very sturdy. The layers of sandbags, once they have set, will stop them moving and thereby reinforce them. Once you’ve finished one layer, and the sandbags have dried, it’s time to start working on the second and third layers. Once they’re done, you should have something that looks a bit like this:

The wall gets taller

Step 6

At this point, I tend to change the way the sandbags are being placed, so that it looks like they’re being used to lock down the layers below. In the case of this set, I had to turn sandbags around on two layers, as I couldn’t get them to fit correctly between the ammunition crate and the fence pole immediately next to it. Next time, I need to plan this a bit better with regards to sandbag placement. Anyway, once you’ve positioned your top row, you should have something that looks like this:

All the sandbags we need for this defensive position

The final stage, prior to painting, is to texture the base. For my models and terrain, I use bird sand, which should be available from your local pet store. It’s also had a bag of coarse grit tipped in, such as you can get from Gale Force 9. I apply a coat of PVA glue to one side of the base at a time, then dip it into the bird sand. Once I’ve taken it out, I make sure I haven’t missed any bits, and redo any areas where bits are missing. Do this to all four sides.

When the glue has dried, shake off the excess sand. At this point, I apply a layer of watered down PVA glue to help bind the sand down, as well as to help protect the foam within the foamcore from the aerosol spray, which will melt it. I also glued a spare bolt pistol onto the crate for a touch more detail. Maybe the Commissar left it there when he went to get his lunch, ready to shoot deserters in the afternoon.

Now we’ve got the build out of the way, it is time to take a break – let all the Milliput cure properly, let the PVA dry fully, etc. Next week, we’ll take a look at painting these sandbags.

The post Sandbags at Dawn – Part 1 appeared first on therenaissancegamer.co.uk.

Having said that, there is one area I do hear compliments on regularly, and that’s how the gold on my figures comes out. I can’t take credit for the method, as I initially found it on The Painting Corps, but I’ve been using it for a few years now with some great results.

Unfortunately, last year Games Workshop decided to completely replace their paint range, meaning that Gryphonne Sepia, a key component in this technique, is no longer available. And guess who forgot to make time to go and pick up a couple of pots before they went off sale?

As I’m almost out of this precious resource, I figured it was time to try out the replacement for Gryphonne Sepia, Seraphim Sepia. Hopefully, this will be a success – but let’s see.

In order to test this theory, we’re joined by our test subject, Bob the Runesmith. Bob was originally released as support for the Grudge of Drong campaign pack back during the 5th edition of Warhammer Fantasy Battles. Say hi, Bob…

Runesmith Bob says Hi!

As we can see, Bob is just undercoated at present. For the purposes of this test, I’ll be working on the ancestor face on the top of his staff. The original technique calls for a basecoat of a mid-tone brown as a base for the gold effect – I don’t generally bother with it, but I’ll be using it for this test. For my mid-tone brown, I used P3 Gun Corps Brown.

Runesmith Bob is wondering where the metals went

Once the brown has dried, a reasonably heavy wetbrush of Chainmail is applied. Fortunately, I was able to pick up one last pot of this before the paint range was discontinued. Looking at the new paint range, I think this is roughly equivalent to either Ironbreaker or Runefang Steel, depending on how bright you want your gold to be.

Runesmith Bob is wondering where his sunglasses went.

Once the Chainmail has dried, it is time to break out the Sepia. The wash tints the base metallic, and the more layers you add, the darker the colour ends up being. Here’s Bob after the first wash has dried.

Runesmith Bob is wondering when the alchemists will finish

I’m hoping you’re starting to get the idea here. The single layer of wash turns the Chainmail from a bright silver to a sort of bronze or brass colour. As we add more layers of wash, the colour will deepen until we get the shade we’re after. It is important to let each layer dry fully before adding the next, mind you. Off you go, layer #2…

Runesmith Bob is not quite satisfied

Layer 2 has deepened the colour somewhat, but we’re still not quite there yet. Time for a third coat.

Runesmith Bob approves!

And with the third coat we’ve got the shade I’m looking for – a rich gold, with decent shading in the recesses. In theory, if you were to highlight the Chainmail with Mithril Silver (or Ironbreaker with Runefang Steel) before starting to wash, those highlights would carry through the wash, but I’m not certain such a step is really needed.

So there you go – now I just need to finish painting the rest of Bob, and that’ll be another hero ready for my Dwarf army. At some point, I might get some units painted for them, I’m sure. Once Bob is finished, I’ll post him on here in his full glory.

Let me know what you think of the technique below.

The post When is gold not gold? appeared first on therenaissancegamer.co.uk.

Before I get started with the photos, time for a couple of plus points for Mantic’s customer services. Firstly, the Open Day had been advertised as having a goodie bag you’d get for turning up. For some reason, Mantic hadn’t been able to sort these out, so gave everyone who turned up, paid ticket or otherwise, a voucher equal to the cost of the paid ticket, to use in their store on the day.

Secondly, I’d requested the backer version of the Kings of War rulebook, but had received the standard version. Fortunately, an email address had been provided on the KS in case of any errors, so I was able to fire a quick message off late afternoon on a Saturday – and was somewhat stunned to receive a response from Stewart, who I believe is one of their CS guys, just before midnight that night, agreeing to switch the book at the Open Day (to save messing around with posting things). The first member of staff I ran into when I got to the Open Day was Stewart, and the switch was sorted out straight away. In addition, to make up for the hassle, he sorted me out with an extra voucher, which was cool of him.

Anyway, now I’ve gotten the customer service side of Mantic praised, time for the pretty pictures…

Quick note before the pictures – if you want to rehost them or show them elsewhere, I don’t object, but please credit this blog & provide a link to the original post.

Warpath Demo

David, one of the Mantic Pathfinders (volunteers) was on hand to take me through a quick game of Warpath, using the forces from the current Warpath starter set – so my Forgefathers were somewhat outnumbered by the Marauder horde.

The Marauder horde

The stoic Forgefathers – minus the Iron Ancestor that turned up before we started playing.

Looking down the table from the Forgefather end

Deployment was fairly easy, with the Marauders having a long trek across an open field into the firepower of the Stormrage Veterans in a bunker – which was unpleasant for them. Those guys do a very good line in covering fire, and it works even better when the op-force don’t have barriers to hide behind.

Despite my habit of rolling 1′s, the Forgefathers eventually prevailed. Both sides had their fortunate moments – the Marauder Raptor doing a sole point of damage to my Heavy Hailstorm Cannon, only for it to rout off the board; the Stormrage Veteran Thane managing to do the third point of damage to the Raptor on their activation, getting vengeance for the HHC.

The Marauders did eventually get to mix things up in close combat, and it did feel odd not to be rolling attacks back in my opponent’s activation. I was quite fortunate there, as David kept failing to do sufficient damage to my Steel Warriors to force Nerve checks – mind you, I was doing a good job in unleashing a load of firepower at a target and killing off a couple of guys.

When in doubt, apply more firepower – the few survivors.

I enjoyed the game, though I’m fairly sure we were getting some of the rules of Warpath 2.0 wrong – in my defence, I’d only just been handed a copy of the rules, and David said he’d only seen them the night before, as the printed mini-books were pretty much hot off the press – either way, I’ll be keeping an eye on it for the future, as there looks to be the base of a good game here.

The Iron Ancestor

Works better when not Suppressed

Oh, and before I forget – the Iron Ancestor is very cool.

Corporation Display Table

While there were a bunch of table set up in the warehouse with games going on, there was one table stood alone, with a Corporation base on there. The base was giving me a bit of a Starship Troopers vibe, so I took a few pictures…

One Corporation base – where are the brain bugs?

Enforcers Man The Walls

An Enforcer Assault Team stands ready to head to any breach

WIP Sculpts

One of the rooms upstairs at Mantic HQ had Bob Naismith holding court to a changing bunch of people. He had some greens on his desk, and I think he was meant to be working, but spent a lot of time talking about miniature & sprue design, and the merits of different sculpting materials. I would have loved to be able to set up a dictaphone in there for the day, and transcribe the discussion, as it was fascinating. Just before I went into one of the seminars, he started work on the head for Coach Ronnie (a Dreadball Kickstarter incentive) – please bear in mind that the picture below is after about 90 minutes work.

A mixed box of WIPs

The WIPs again – there were some elves in there, the Gargoyles, etc

Abyssal Dwarf Obsidian Golems

The Golems again – one thing that I think Ronnie pointed out to me is they’re meant to have a fire (or energy source) burning in their belly, and magma under their obsidian skin.

The Gargoyle/Harpy sculpts – being finalised by Wednesday, to go to the mold makers on Friday.

The Kickstarter Skeleton Dogwalker – looked finished.

I really can’t remember what this dude is.

The female Vampire from the Kickstarter – face-on

The female Vampire from the Kickstarter – side-on

Very very early sculpt of the head of the Coach Ronnie KS-exclusive. Will replace the head on the Corporation Officer.

Armies in Cabinets

While I was wandering around the building, there were several cabinets set up with models on display – I picked up a few shots. Apologies for any reflections from the glass.

An army of Abyssal Dwarves in the warehouse

An army of Orcses

A shambling horde of the Undead

Some Twilight Kin, in a cabinet, yesterday.

Marauders, now with dodgy lighting

Dreadball Pictures

I did get my game of Dreadball in towards the end of the day, on the very shiny acrylic pitch. It looks like the demo format is the last five turns of the game, from a draw, between Corporation and Marauders. As the Greenmoon Smackers I was able to pull a 2 point win out of the hat, which was cool – the game has some elements which, as a ball-based sports game, feel somewhat like Blood Bowl, but there is certainly enough of a difference from it to play very differently. I like that modifiers are to your dice pool, rather than what you’re looking to get on the dice, and that 6′s explode, for instance.

With that out of the way, time for some Dreadball-themed pictures.

The Dreadball acrylic pitch after my demo game

Dreadball Marauders and Corporation with pitch inserts

Dreadball Marauders with pitch inserts

Dreadball Forgefathers with pitch inserts

One thing that you could say was an exclusive yesterday were metal Corporation and Marauder teams for Dreadball. I believe too any had been made up for promo purposes, so they put the excess up for sale – which was cool, as I guess they could just have melted them down and re-used them. I snagged one of the Corportation teams, along with a metal RefBot.

Limited release metal Corporation team

I wonder how long it’ll take me to get them painted…

While I did attend one of the seminars, I wasn’t prepared as I could’ve been, and forgot to fetch a pad to make notes on – something to remember for next time, I guess. I only asked one question, regarding themed coaches for the Season 2 & 3 teams for Dreadball – unfortunately, it doesn’t look like they’re on the current plan, but they weren’t conclusively ruled out either.

Anyway, I enjoyed the Open Day, and will be looking to attend one again in the future.

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Now, admittedly, the pansy Elves of the Retribution had shown up with plastic heavy warjacks first, but they don’t really count. However, after this release cycle there was one faction – or, should I say, non-faction – which was missing a plastic warjack kit: the Mercenaries.

At the time, this was understandable – as a faction, there weren’t enough warjacks on the same chassis for there to be a sensible release. When Forces of Warmachine: Mercenaries was released with a metal Ghordson Avalancher, which would have made the third Rhulic warjack on the same chassis, some Mercenary players began to lose hope. However, the 2011 release of Warmachine: Wrath saw the introduction of two new warjacks which meant there was a light at the end of the tunnel – and, for once, it wasn’t an oncoming train.

Warmachine: Wrath brought us the Rover Heavy Warjack and Rocinante, the personal warjack of Steelhead Warcaster Captain Amador Damiano, who was also introduced in Wrath. The artwork for both warjacks showed design similarities with both the Nomad and Mule warjacks – which was interesting, as the existing models for them had as many differences as they had similarities. Still, as there had been confirmation from PP staff at a convention earlier in 2011 that any character warjacks released with Wrath would be upgrades for a plastic kit, this seemed to confirm the hopes of the Mercenary players – though there were some, like me, that remained sceptical until the kit was finally officially previewed.

Mercenary Heavy Warjack Kit

The warjack kit was officially previewed in mid-October, though it took until mid-December for Rocinante to appear. When the preview pictures were first posted, it looked like the person making the kit had produced an omni-jack – there was no difference in pose between each variant. This caused some to describe the kit as boring and restrictive – fortunately, additional pictures were posted shortly afterwards, with more varied poses. There were still those who disliked the kit, feeling that by cross-breeding design elements from the Nomad and Mule, you’d lost part of the distinctive feel of each warjack. There had been no mention in earlier fiction that they were built on the same chassis, which made the redesign a little jarring. Also, the Nomad was recognised as being one of the best warjack kits Privateer Press had released to date, with plenty of points where you could reposition it easily.

We’re now in January 2012, and the kit was released in the UK this week. I’d ordered a kit, alongside the Rocinante character upgrade set, as my first build was going to be for Rocinante – with two Nomads and a Mule already, the only variant I need to build from the kit is Rover. This is the first of the Privateer Press plastic kits that I’ve opened, though I’ve done some research online regarding how to construct the model. Unfortunately, the Rocinante upgrade didn’t turn up with the rest of the order, so I won’t be looking at construction this time. However, I will take a look at the kit itself, and what I think of it thus far.

Let’s crack the box open and take a look inside…

What's in the box?

Two things stood out for me when I first opened the box.

1. All the components were off the sprue, but held within a plastic bag – the three heads and one hand were in a bag within a bag. This fitted with what I’d read about the plastic warjack kits previously.
2. The tray within the box was a new design, which held the unit cards securely in place. This is an improvement over the standard boxed sets, where the cards could roam free, which occasionally led to damaged corners. This tray may have been present in the other plastic heavy warjack kits, but as I haven’t bought any of them yet, I hadn’t encountered it before.

Having sliced the bag open with my trusty modelling knife, I took a look at the components. There does seem to be a fair amount of clean-up required, but generally only at the points where components were removed from their sprues. While there are some mould lines, they don’t seem to be in overly problematic places – compare this to some of Privateer Press’ earlier plastic kits, where I remember reading horror stories of mould lines running across the middle of dials on the boiler.

Some of the marks where the kit components were removed from the sprue

The kit looks pretty straightforward to put together, and appears to have some decent options for posing the arms and torso – the legs have a fixed walking-slowly-forwards stance that doesn’t look like it’d be easy to amend. Unlike the metal Nomad and Mule, the shoulders on the plastic kit don’t have a socket for the arms to connect to already attached, which gives you plenty of freedom on the way you want the arms to look. Equally, all the hands attach to the arms at the wrist, allowing you to rotate them as you see fit. If I were building a kit into an omni-jack, this is where I’d be breaking out the magnets.

As this kit comes with the components to make three different heavy warjacks – and I’m going to be using the metal character kit add-on – I’m going to be left with plenty of spare bits. Fortunately, I can already see destinations for several of them – the Rover axe hand, for instance, will find a home as an alternative hand on my second War Hog, while the Mule’s mace may well see duty as a pole-arm on a converted Ogrun Bokur. I need to compare the scale, but it is also quite possible that the shield from the Rover may end up on the same Bokur – I might finally get around to doing the Bokur conversion from Okoru Hagrosh, Ogrun Fighter from the Iron Kingdoms line that I’ve been thinking about for a few years.

I’ll bring part 1 of this review to a close now – so far I’m fairly impressed with the Mercenary Heavy Warjack kit. In part 2, I’ll be looking at the kit in conjunction with the Rocinante Character Upgrade Kit, and seeing just how easy (or hard) it is to make Captain damiano’s signature warjack.

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