As alluded to in my previous post, some more marines have arrived at Arabian Towers. Since ArabianSquire started his Space Marines I'd always fancied playing a co-operative game with him against a common enemy. Necrons/Terminators are the enemy of choice. To do this I obviously need some Marine figures. I can't rely on my Terminators alone - I won't have the numbers.

As the Terminators are original versions, and I'll only be needing a squad or so of marines I thought I'd plump for some old beaky style Space Marines. One for nostalgia reasons and two because they just look great. A fact backed up by my young son who looked through them when they came in and declared "I want to paint them." There at time's to be a giving father and times when you have to put yourself first. This was one of those latter occasions and a swift "No, they're mine" was replied! My 9 year old son shouldn't be building a Rogue Trader era Space Marine army. His pocket money won't stretch that far - Hell, mine doesn't!

Looking at the more stooped posture and pointy head shape it struck me that there is a bit of a resemblance to ZombieSmith's lovely Quar range. I wonder if the sculptor did this on purpose or if it was a subconscious influence? On my wish list anyway, and also gives me the excuse to post the nice Quar animation...

If a brief flurry of bristles I managed to squeeze off a mini for one of my D&D characters - Mord the Half Orc Paladin. Not surprisingly these are pretty thin on the ground, so I've painted up a Games Workshop Lord of the Rings Mordor Orc. The helmet covers most the racial features and the LOTR sculpts are quite slim, so he doesn't stand out too much. In fact he's almost puny by orc-ish standards. No wonder he turned to religion and hangs out with a gnome! His the colours chosen are to match the robes of his mentor.


Why a Gnome cleric? Because this is the figure that I painted for the last ill-fated D&D 4e campaign that David tried to run. It unfortunately only lasted 2 sessions, so a return of the Gnome is on was on the cards (even if he is more heavily built than his Half-orc charge!).

Also significantly it takes me over my painted/bought threshold. I'm in the black. Although 10 RTB01 Space Marines came through the door today to plunge me back under. But for nearly 10 hours I was up - hurrah for me!

Following on from my first attempt to speed paint through a period drama, the first part of the BBC's adaptation of "Women in Love" gave me the opportunity to put into practice some of my own advice. To give me a fighting chance of completing in the 90 minutes I readied (ie assembled and primed) 2 citadel terminators. I have a few of these waiting to be painted, as I picked up the 1991 Terminator squad box (along with a few other Space Hulk boxes) a couple of years ago in a charity shop. For a bit of variety in the squad I'd plumped for the captain and a flamer. The added complications caused by a special weapon and the non-standard Captain would hopefully be offset by only having a 2 figures to paint.

To make a 90 minute story short I still didn't quite make it to completion. I could point to the added time required to change colours for the Captains exposed head or the flamers side casing, but really the biggest problem is still drying time. With so much of the figure painted the same colour (nice and quick) it quite often wasn't quite dry by the time I'd finished the same on the second figure. So of the paint was definitely applied on top of slightly tacky previous paint cover - not best practice. I still managed to nearly get the 2 completed though (further than the previous attempt). It does raise the problem of how to tackle the drying problem. I'm not near a radiator, I can't use a hairdryer and if I add an extra figure to allow more drying time I'll be further from completion.

In the end I suppose it will come down to compromise. I have mostly finished a couple of figures during the film. In future, if the film is longer, completing 2 figures may be a realistic target, but in the meantime I'll just console myself with the "nearly finished" progress. Still, 2 tabletop figures in 2 hours, not too shabby.

The final quick gallery post for now. Another Cryx Heavy and my second Slayer. As he was being done at the same time as the Reaper he also has the experimental cork tile base. I will do this again, but it's really crying out for some lava between those cracks instead of swampy murk.



Painting 3 heavy warjacks at once sounded like good sense at the time, but it has been a long slog to get through them and the lack of gallery pictures through January and February is shows to how tying and dispiriting it was at times. My painted figure count should hopefully shoot up to above the "bought figure" in the next few weeks though, which will be nice. Or at least until Carronade in May...

Time to bolster the heavy jack contingent of my force with a Reaper (well in a more points affordable way than the Deathjack anyway). Not really too much to say about this lad to be honest. I've tried a using some cork tile for basing to boost his height, especially after standing at beside the DJ for a couple of months. Not sure if I'll continue this for my Cryx force, to be honest, as it only mostly works for the damp, swampy feel I've gone for with the other bases in the force.

After finishing off painting his first set of marines and getting them on the table, ArabianSquire was keen to get some more troops to bolster his numbers. Having looked around Ebay, a tactical squad seemed to be the best choice. This would give him an easily recognisable Sergeant figure, a couple of heavy weapons and an extra 7 standard marines. There are also loads of new sets out there from the Assault on Black Reach set.

In the end, though, we picked up a bargain squad. They may be in an older style of armour (mkII apparently), but the composition is there, they are only base coated and they came in at a final cost of £5.60. He's chuffed to have some more marines that he can legitimately call his own. This last point is notable as I am insisting that he uses his own cash (of which he seems to have more than me!) to fund his army - at this cheap early stage anyway. Having bought these himself he'll have more emotional attachment to them and be more likely to actually put the figures to use, and as an exercise in money management how much more example can you have for shopping around for a good price than buying Games Workshop gear (a brand new in the box 10 man Tactical squad is £23 RRP at the moment!).

On a related, but separate, note I had a quick google round for a banner to put on the Sergeant and printed out one for show. It comes from the aptly named W40k: Banners and Badges site. Loads of banners there for most 40k races and a few "historic" ones there as well. I'll let the wee lad browse around the designs and pick one for himself when he gets round to painting again.

I can hardly believe it. This bad boy has been looming over my painting area for months, so to actually have him finished is actually quite emotional.

I can't take any credit for the customisations on this piece, it was a bargain pre-assembled Ebay purchase - built, undercoated and over £10 off RRP. I've continued my rusted grey armour theme, which I am still very much enjoying the look of. I've tried to make sure that the Skulls of Hate ring out in the army signature colour (purple in my case). Also, I painted the poor soldier on the base with an intentionally subdued pallette as I wanted to make sure that the eye was drawn to the hulking DeathJack first then the base was noticed afterwards. The custom base adds about an extra 20mm to the figure height, so it totally dwarfs all the other figures - even the other heavy jacks!

With roleplaying not running this week (planned this time), MacSver kindly accepted the invitation to wander down the road and give me a Warmachine lesson, in many ways. Both of us play Cryx, so I can at least see some of my own model types (or similar) being handled by someone with a bit more knowledge and experience - no matter what he says! Despite the amount of time collecting and painting the models I still haven't actually played that many games of Warmachine, so certain rules and action still escape me. Also, although I'm starting to know what some of my units can do I'm not experienced enough to know what they are capable of, which is a big difference. It was the first time I've put together a 35pt force. My immediate thought was "Oooh, all those extra units I can field" only to find that those extra 10 pts don't really go that far, especially when you've got restricted choice to start with.


Anyway the tall and short of it was that I had to best guess deploy first, I then muttered the WM mantra "play like you've got a pair" to myself before charging into the field. This unfortunately left me within striking range of MacSver's forces in his first turn (the table is only 3 feet wide so even with shortened deployment zones quite short), putting me on the defensive (mentally at least) and I let myself get tied up focusing on his Bone Jacks and approaching Bane Thralls. Then just as I thought I saw an way to clear a path to his Warcaster, he pushed forward Deneghra, popped her feat, Crippling Grasped my Dene, and brought his focus laiden Harrower round the corner to blast the witch away from rediculous range. This had been his rough plan all along. It's at times like these that I feel either tactically naive or just plain tactically unaware. I know that this should come with more experience, but it's still a bit disheartening at times.

At least I feel a bit clued up about certain aspects of play (including tactics) with the discussion afterwards. I can see now that my force shape is very much going down a certain path, which I now I am content with it's concept I can just concentrate on that.

I am not going to spend loads of cash to have many options. I don't play regularly enough to justify the outlay, and I have many, many other games that require my attention, enjoyment (and sometimes even my cash!). So I have picked a theme, of sorts, and will stick to that. Mostly Helljacks with a couple of units (bile thralls and mechanithralls) and a handful of solos. All the models have to be of an undead nature (so no she-demons) and theme (so no pirates). Bane thralls/knights get forget it as well as a) they cost too much cash and b) I hate "must have" units. Also units take up too much painting time and get tedious! I know that this course of army management will put me at a disadvantage but as long as I realise that I can hopefully, with a bit of experience, work round it. Also not always playing against Cryx might freshen things around a bit as well.

More experience required all round then!

With the inclimate weather hitting Scotland this weekend, I sat Arabiansquire down to continue painting his space marine, having finished his first one a few weeks ago. After 30 minutes he'd done the blue and the guns on a couple of figures before the need for a break and a biscuit. The painting gear was left out, and took the brush down time to walk the dog for half an hour. So imagine my surprise when I returned to find him sitting finishing off his FOURTH figure on my return. How did that happen? He'd used a few speed painting short cuts (reduced palette, etc), but they are painted and will be good on the table.


Now as this desperate plan was forged a mere 30 minutes before program start I didn't have time to test any colour plans, etc - just grab some paints I thought would work, equip the laptop painting station, pour a large drink and sit down before curtain raise.


 
  My initial plan was to dry brush the background parts of the terminator and just use the main colour on the most forward sections of the armour. A drybrush of dark marine blue was rubbish. So I repeated with Space Wolf Grey. It also looked rubbish, so I abandoned this plan and went for a covering of Dark marine blue (the clock was ticking) on the armour and Space wolf grey as the base for the helmets (the intention being the helmets would be white) and a white shoulder pad. Next up was hopefully the final colour shade of Space Marine Blue. It didn't take me too long to realise that this was going to be too dark, but in the interest of consistency I painted all 3 termies in it. On the opposite end of the contrast range I also realised that Space Wolf Grey was way too light to pick up the sunken detail of the helmets, so I gave them a wash in blue. Whilst all this was drying some aged gold was applied to the motif on the shoulder. Gun bolt metal was also brushed on the weapons. Time was running out now, and I'd started to run out of options on my rushed palette. The ink wash had dried on the helmets so some white highlighting was done. A quick dash through the house had me "borrowing" ArabianSquires blue that he'd been using for his marine earlier in the day, which I only managed to get on one marine before the end credits had finished rolling. I'd failed!

  Or had I?

Well, yes I had. But as compensation after less than 2 hours I had 3 mostly painted Terminators and I had learned some valuable lessons. I was always going to be tight for time from the start. Next time I should convince my other half to watch Gone with the Wind (although that's actually a film worth watching!). Spending so much time applying coats of paint (and the subsequent drying time) did me no favours. Having a rough idea of what sort paint colours you are going to use is no substitute for knowing what paint colours you are going to use. Also, not playing 40k, the models are not very familiar to me, especially all the small details in the sculpts that are not immediately apparent when they are bare metal. All these problems were all symptomatic to the fact I only thought of this with half an hour before the whistle blew.

And just to finish the piece here's a picture of the finished Terminators after about another hours work. No great shakes, but table worthy (see below):


The key to the timed speed paint is preparation. You must know your model, paints and methods. Know where you can save time with a big brush and what parts you can get on with whilst other areas dry. Know how long it'll take to work round fiddly bits or how you are going to tackle them. Know where you can shortcut with washes and a dry brush. With a plan you know will work you can efficiently get the paint on.

And to finish, a picture from the following day as both sets of newly painted figures got table time.


I've been playing alot of my Gladiator games during my lunch time. The beauty of the genre is that usually there are only two figures to use, and after the initial turn or two they are toe-to-toe, making playing at my desk easy. In the new version of Red Sands... the movement is by arena zone, making in potentially at bit more tricky space-wise. So I've used the board and counters in the new version to make a cyber-arena:

[埋込みオブジェクト:http://sites.google.com/site/weeblokes/files/RSBS_round.swf]

You can drag and drop the gladiator icons anywhere in the arena. The gladiator style on the icon also marks the rear of the gladiator. Gladiators can be rotated (clockwise) by pressing the initial letter of the style.

ie:
Dimachaerus - "D"
Hoplomachus - "H"
Murmillo - "M"
Retiarius - "R"
Secutor - "S"

Full Size Arena Here

Once its had THW Ed's runthrough (with disclaimers, etc) I'll probably be uploading to the THW yahoo group.

Please note that I am no whizz at flash, this has been done mostly via having the software on my PC and a bit of google-fu, so anything more complicated will probably be well past my ken.

"As mentioned to my previous report a new era of Gladitorial combat is upon us. Caesar is keen to increase his popularity and the tried and tested ways of doing this are either lavish orgies in palaces or orgies of violence across the Empire. The later is cheaper for the Empirial coffers, so the Promoter Barrius Hearnius has been brought in to revamp the setup. After examination of his new guidelines, I have decided to sell up my current gladiators and start from scratch again. All my gladiators had healed within a month, so after selling all the School stock my purse sits at an improved 5800 aurei. Heading in the right direction at least."

[Note: Gladiator and equipment costs in the new version of Red Sand, Blue Sky are calculated completely differently from before]


I thought that 4 gladiators would be a good start to the new school. The new regulations allow for new combatants to be purchased at the end of each month if desired. 2 trained gladiators and 2 untrained slaves would seem to make an interesting starting roster. The profits from the quickly improving (assuming they stay alive) untrained slaves would be worth investigating, where as you need to have some trained for success. In the gladiator pool I have picked the Secutor, who is of average ability but cheapest, and every Ludus needs a Retiarius, so he was bought. As for the slaves, a Dacien one stood out as a big strong lad, so I paid the extra for him. A run of the mill slave was also on the list. The cheapest, though, was a Gaul. I've already run foul of having Gauls in my school, especially ordinary looking ones, so I avoided him and paid the extra aurei for the Thracien (and peace of mind!).

Onto Equipment. Obviously I needed Secutor and Retiarus gear. The slave from Thraca would hopefully have some instinct for the Thraex style of combat, maybe even basically taught before being plucked from his homeland, and you can't go wrong with having a Murmillo in the Stable. In all cases, especially with my winnings from the first 3 months, I bought the heavier armour to help protect my investments. Signatures (individual quirks) were also rolled for here, but the results all came up with "no signature".

So costs come to:

• Acacius (Galatia) - Retiarius : 56
• Balbus (Hispania) - Secutor : 44
• Caecus (Thrace) - ex-Slave Thraex : 28
• Dagwalus (Dacia) - ex-Slave Murmillo : 36
• Total Investment : 164 aurei

[ You can maybe see why I sold up and started again. In the old system the gladiator and armour pricing was much more expensive. even taking into account the smaller number of Gladiators and the cheap ex-slaves the costs are 164 against 2540 aurei. Gladiators will also increase in value as their attributes go up, as opposed to when their entire Rep went up in the old system (ignoring the 100pt Fame bonus) so the chance to make more money more quickly will hopefully see me make my way towards Rome.]

Abercius's leg wound didn't heal in time for this months fight.

Balbillus (Rep 4 Retiarus) vs Rep 4 Secutor

Turn 1: Dice Pool: Retiarus(20), Secutor(20), Init Secutor

• Both advance towards each other (10" Gap)

• Secutor Advances 3"
• Retiarus Advances 2" to the edge of his Net range and attacks. At this range the Secutor sees it coming and grabs the end of the net. This results in a brief tug of war which the Retiarus wins, and he retrieves his net.

Turn 3: Dice Pool: Retiarus(15), Secutor(17) Init Retiarus (5" Gap)

• Retiarus Net attack, but the Secutor is ready again and grabs the net. Again the Retiarus manages to win the pulling contest and retrieve his net.
• The Sectutor then closes in 3"

• The Retiarus backs away from the Secutor 2" then springs a thrird net attack. This one catches his opponent out and he is pulled face down into the dust, ensnared in the net.
• The Retiarus rushes forward to take advantage, making sure that he uses the superior reach of his trident to stay out of harms way. But in his haste the strike only catches the Secutors large helmet and the fallen Gladiator turns over to face his enemy, still on the ground.
• The Retiarus still manages to get another attack in whilst the Secutor is on the ground, but it is fended off.
• The Secutor manages to make it to his feet, retreat away from the Retiarus and removes the net, which is thrown, useless onto the ground. The Retiarus will have to battle the unwounded, but tired Secutor with only his trident.

Turn 5: Dice Pool: Retiarus(4), Secutor(2), Init Retiarus

• The Retiarus moves forward to a 1" range and attacks, but his tired efforts are parried away.
• Knowing he cannot get away from his opponent to catch his breath the Secutor makes one final attack, but the thrust of his weapon is avoided and he finaly surrenders exhausted.

Balbillus is declared victorious and received 4 AP and 4 Fame.

Caecilianus (Rep 3 dwarf Hoplomachus) vs Rep 3 Murmillo

• Both Gladiators advance towards each other (finishing turn 2 6" apart)

• Murmillo moves forward 3"
• Hoplomachus moves forward to 1" gap and attacks. The Murmillo blocks the effort and stabs forward, but the extra reach og the spear has kept the Hoplomachus out of harms reach.

Turn 4: Dice Pool: Hoplomachus(13), Murmillo(12), Init Hoplomachus

• Again the Hoplomachus attacks from outside his opponents reach, but loses out, thankful again for the reach advantage.
• The Murmillo advances to striking range and makes an attack, trying to press home his size advantage. He hits the little Gladiator in the belly, but not well enough to wound and the little man staggers back 1".

• Trying to get the upper hand on his retreating opponent the Murmillo advances and attacks again, only to pushed back 1" with an aching belly himself this time. Luckily with no wound.
• The Hoplomachus then makes his attack, but it comes to nothing.

Turn 6: Dice Pool: Hoplomachus(2), Murmillo(1), Init Hoplomachus

• Both Gladiators are exhausted, so that when the Hoplomachus makes a half hearted attack, his opponent can only just match him before surrendering exhausted.

Caecilianus is declared victorious and received 3 AP and 3 Fame.

Dacien (Rep 4 Thracian) vs Rep 4 Retiarus

• Both Gladiators advance towards each other (to a 9" Gap)

Turn 2: Dice Pool: Thracian(20), Retiarus(20), Init Thracian

• Thracian advances half an inch, wary of his opponents effective attack range.
• The Retiarus moves up to his maximum net attack range.

Turn 3: Dice Pool: Thracian(20), Retiarus(20) Init Thracian

• Dacien moves forward towards his opponent, hoping to fend off the inevitable net attack and get to striking distance.
• The net attack is launched but fended off. The gladiators are 2" apart now. Within movement and melee attack range of the Thracian next round.

• Crucially the Retiarus gets his attack in before the Thracian get to melee range and he manages to this time esnare his opponent and pull him face down to the ground.
• He quickly makes a follow up attack, wounding the prone entangles man in the upper back.
• Dacien rolls over in time to see a second attack come in to his chest, but manages to roll his shield in the way, saving himself from a second, fatal upper body wound.
• Again the Retiarus thrusts forward. Again his attack is blocked, but the efforts of being ensnared and on the ground are too much for Dacien, and he is forced to surrender.

Eborius (Rep 4 Provocator) vs Rep 4 Provocator

• Both gladiators move towards each other to close to a 6" Gap

Turn 3: Dice Pool: Eborius(20), Provocator(20), Init Eborius

• Eborius moves 2"
• The Provocator moves a full 3" to leave a 1" gap

Turn 4: Dice Pool: Eborius(20), Provocator(20), Init Provocator

• The Provocator moves in and attacks, but his efforts are matched.
• Eborius attempts to flank his opponent, but his opponent turns to face his manouvering opponent before any attack comes in.
• Eborius still presses home his attack though, and the Provocator staggeres back half an inch with a bleeding wound in is belly.

• The Provocator replies with an attack, but his fresh wound slows him and it is easily countered.
• Eborius is over confident in his next attack and the result of a full strength counter leaves Eborius staggering back 1" clutching his badly bleeding belly in disbelief.

Turn 6: Dice Pool: Eborius(5), Provocator(7), Init Provocator

• Seeing his opponent is in trouble, the Provocator makes a bash attack on Eborius, sending him painfully back an inch.
• Eborius is very fatigued now, and realises that he needs to knock his opponent to the ground if he has any chance of victory. Hope springs to him as a return bash attack knocks the Provocator to the ground, but the weary follow-up attack is pushed away and Eborius is forced to surrender exhausted and wounded.

I don't normally post video clips (especially as I don't watch this show) but this one is too funny not to:


A comedy take on the TV Adventure phone-in game, courtesy of "Limmy's Show"
(Warning: As this is a Scottish show, some viewers may need to look at the comments for the odd translation)

There are others, but he next best I think is the RPG newbie call…


This last one will definately be causing a few "Get Troll" instructions next D&D session.

cross-posted with A Year of Frugal Gaming


Again mixed bag this month. Somehow I suspect every month will be! First of all lets look at the hard facts:

• Outgoings: £51.07
• Incomings: £101.68
• Figures painted: 10
• Figures bought: 15