Return of the Pirates

Now that its official, it might be time to announce the return of Legends of the High Seas at Adepticon 2014. Pirate gaming has been on the back burner for a couple years now but the interest and demand is still there, so after a bunch of back and forth I was eventually keelhauled back in to run it. I am quite confident already that with some help from Tim , the rule books author, and some other fine folk all ready secured it is going to be one hell of a game! I am running it as a big game this year rather than a traditional tournament, however its a 3 stage game so it will have that down home tournament feel. We are assembling a really great board of terrain old and new, and in honor of the most successful pirate on record and all those entertaining Rum commercials its themed on Captain Henry Morgan.

Direct from the Adepticon webcart here is the event description:

Legends of the High Seas - The Sacking of Panama, 1671

  In December 1670 and January 1671, Henry Morgan, one of the most notorious and successful pirates on the Spanish Main, destroyed Fort San Lorenzo and Burned and Sacked the City of Panama. The utter chaos that followed was a payday for Pirate and Pirate Hunters alike. Be one of 10 Privateer, Pirate or Royal Navy Crews that explore the ruins of Fort San Lorenzo and the City of Panama searching for plundered Spanish gold. Bring your Crew comprised of up to 15 men and face off on a 48 Square foot board to capture objectives, eliminate enemy crews and capture as much gold as possible in this 3 Stage, 4 hour event. In the end, only one players name will rival that of Henry Morgan, but they will damn sure know the names of the ones who almost stopped them! Awards for the top two scorers and Best Painted Crew!

10 spots , $10 dollars,  given the interest on our local forums and my inbox this should sell out right away.

I'll be posting the rules as soon they are submitted for the event, as I was working from the cancelled

2012 event most the work is done, slight changes to tailor to the event. excited to get back pirate gaming, you know we will run a demo of this event at the house before Adepticon...Arghhhh.

Empire of the Dead- Order of the Dragon

Didn't find much time to hobby this weekend, with Pumpkin Patches, a broken fridge, plenty of house work and Halloween coming up, I barely had time to base up and prime a second faction for Empire of the Dead. Fitting with the Halloween theme here is most of the new Order of the Dragon figures, which are the Nosferatu faction for the game.

Bases are made from Hirst floor pieces shaped with a dremel, I gave the Count a sword in a minor conversion

 The base Requiem set contains, The Count (Graf) the Count in bat form, 3 consorts (1 pictured here)
the Mad Man (Renfield) and a Thrall with a Gatling Gun (not pictured) The other figures are masked Order of the Dragon Thugs, a separate 4 figure set. No Guardian with the new figures (yet?) but there are plenty of other figures in the Kickstarter exclusives that can fill that role.

 A starting 150 point force for our Demo Tuesday is the Count, a Consort, 4 thralls and a bat swarm
Versus the Unwitting Policemen of the Supernatural Branch, A Detective and Sergeant, 2 Constables and the Firearms Constable, they might seem a bit outmatched at the basic level but the Police are packing a Shotgun and the Gatling Gun so we will see how that goes.

No much to look at now, but I hope to get some real paint on both factions asap, my work on the upcoming Bilbos Birthday Bash is really behind, I need a couple long painting session for some big models and my display still needs a ton of work..it might end up getting pushed back to Adepticon
but if so, I am SOL as my theme is really tied together via the display, not sure what I'll do if that doesn't come together, I know! paint some Empire of the Dead instead.....

Empire of the Dead- A Night's Work

 The first week of this month I received my Kickstarter package for the new launch of Empire of the Dead by Westwind Productions.  Titled "Empire of the Dead: Requiem" its complete overhaul of the game with a whole bunch of new factions , figures and vehicles. The original game had 5 starter boxed and worked in conjunction with Westwinds previous Vampire Wars line. With this big Kickstarter release the game is now fully developed with its own line. I'll talk about the game play at a later date, I am planning on playing some Demos on Tuesday evening. But needless to say if you are a fan of the GW skirmish rule sets, like Mordheim, Lord of the Rings and the "Legends" games you are going to enjoy this.

Just primed and basecoated, bases by Secret Weapon.

Because I am seriously in the weeds getting my Lord of the Rings stuff ready for Bilbo's Birthday Bash, I have barely had time to go thru the EotD stuff, but tonight I took a break and did. I modeled up, primed and basecoated my first faction, The London Police's "Supernatural Branch", in which I also included Sherlock Holmes, and Dr Watson. The 8 models outside of Holmes and Watson are set 2 of the available Police figures, and includes the Steampunk Infernium Hound.  I plan on working on my second faction, The Nosferatu., this weekend. I'll probably get into finishing the paint right after BBB concludes in early November.

I took a few minutes to figure out how I wanted the Blues to work.

 With GW games falling totally off my Radar, and Lord of the Rings, er,, excuse me ,"The Hobbit SBG" winding down for a host of reasons, I've been looking for good skirmish game to get into and I am hoping this is it, I love the setting as old school Gothic Horror fan with touches on so many other fantasy and Science Fiction elements from classic literature, its drippy with that classic nostalgia from my youth that made me such LotR fan.  Moving ahead, I pretty sure beside our Ancients gaming , EotD and Bolt Action are the games I will be playing.

Love this Holmes and Watson pair, can't wait to paint them!

A couple things I want to point however if your interested in taking the plunge. # 1 these miniatures are true 25'smm the don't scale well with Reaper or GW miniatures they are roughly the size of the older GW LotR plastics.  The do work perfectly with alot of the Hasslefree miniatures stuff which was a pleasant surprise as I picked up some Hasslefree stuff a few years back for a project and couldnt use it due to the scale disparity of the other figs I was using, and now I have use for them!

#2, Kudos to Westwind Productions as this was hands down the best Kickstarter I have been involved in as far as backer communication, and product delivery all clearly spelled out and on time, Also delivery to backers first before any retail sales which I guess starts in November. That is super positive sign these guys have it together so if you want to invest in a new games from a small company. This  is a good barometer of their business practices.

I'll try to post some pics and demo reports of our games on Tuesday,....

Reaper Bones II launches!

When I awoke this morning I was greeted by an email from Reaper announcing the launch of Bones II. when I checked in on the Kickstarter page, after grabbing my morning coffee, it had already hit well over 300K or 300% of its goal. Now I get home from work its at 750K and still "Cha-Chinging" away with no signs of slowing down- this is just day one people.

I have to ask, and maybe you can help me...but who, exactly is buying these things? while the first Bones was a great deal for its $100 Vampire pledge and the resulting bonus rewards . Its almost universally agreed upon by the miniature collecting blogosphere that Bones was an exercise in mediocrity. from the odd bendy material to the shallow detail, to difficulties people having getting paint to stick to it. In general I have observed that people who just want miniatures for RPG's like pre painted ones and I didnt see the feedback on Bones from the greater community that this was anything more than a very successful stunt with mixed results based on people's personal tastes. Nothing that would quite justify the very possible 1 million dollar 24 hour opening, or at the very least first 48 hours.

 Now dont get me wrong I like my stuff from Bones I , they have there uses, But do I already have way more then I will ever need, before Bones 2? Yes.  Would I much rather Reaper get back to it regular release schedule instead of it being stopped almost to a crawl in the wake of servicing Bones?. Yes. Would I and many others rather have the metal figures with a wider Bones selection for cheap rank and file troops, and not the entire Reaper catalog converted to Bones? Yes.

So I have to ask again who exactly is buying these at these amounts and level of interest?
I  must say I dont get it.  I'll gladly take select Reaper metals and some select Bones figs for various gaming purposes..but another 200 bendy plastic figs with hit or miss details, No thank you.

I guess if you are buying into Bones 2, thanks for expanding the line for the rest of us that want to cherry pick  Bones figures, but this must be disconcerting to other long time Reaper fans other than myself  when there hasnt been a Dark Heaven or Chronoscope new release in pewter since February.

Another one bites the dust...

So strolling thru Oak Park,IL today to catch a matinee of the new Riddick movie, I walked by the old stomping grounds of Games Workshop, Oak Park, and noticed the big sign in the window they are  closing on 9.22.13 . A textbook lesson  on how to "Kamikazee a great retail location with constant foot traffic and a huge public High School and Library within walking distance. "GWOP" as we used to call it went from gaming mecha and after hours club hangout with never less than a dozen people in the store and three employees at all times...to one man store run by super fan and awesome guy, who was really reaching out to the kids. to generic one man  red shirt, tumble weeds and crickets chirping. Maybe my pal Jeff who used to run it will muse how he made that place a kick ass gaming store from 2007 to 2009.  Anyway the writings been on wall for sometime well see what happens to GW overall, I read they want to sell it off . Games Workshop , Oak Park 2007-2013..I'd say I'd miss you but I think I have been in there 2 times in the last 3 years, maybe something useful will take over that location.

The Blackout has Lifted- FUBAD

GW's Minas Tirith with my "scaled up" recreation in background

 Having not updated the blog in 6 weeks, (a first for me in the blogs lifespan) I now know how alot of you feel when you go long periods without an update. In my case, I am sure for many of you. It hasnt been because there is nothing going on, but because I havent had the time to put together two coherent thoughts every couple days saying I'll update tomorrow, or this weekend...then distractions abound and boom nothing happens. Today I'd made sure I had the camera downstairs as I spent some time getting things moving for Bilbos Birthday Bash coming in November.

Original. my almost complete left wall and the right wall from in the background I used an MDF shim cut at a 5 degree pitch to mirror the wall angle of the original piece.

 For this years BBB several of other local players and I talked about the event at Adepticon loosing agreeing to be team FUBAD, which stands for "Freaking Unbelievable Big Ass Displays" If I recall correctly. Considering I am continuing my 2013 theme of "The Battle of Pelennor Fields" for all LotR projects. I thought rebuilding the walls of Minas Tirith in a much better scale then the rather average sized set GW came out with years ago would be in order.  According to Professor Tolkien- The walls of Minas Tirith are seven stacked levels each 100 feet higher the preceding level with the 7th level   being 300 feet high making the pinnacle ( that Denethor swan dives off ablaze in film version of Return of the King)  "1000 feet above the plain" that being said in 28mm the set GW released has walls about 25 feet high, I bumped it up to around 50 feet for my scaled up version, with the main gate having additional towers that will go up to 15 inches high..so while still not quite 100 feet its alot closer and the size more impressive when compared with the miniatures.

Gluing up the back side its still WIP .

 The biggest obstacle here is the casting of course. It's alot of plaster  a ton of individul casts of the castle wall slab and the 4 inch tower mold, I also hacked up my resin GW set because I'm getting a silicon mold made of the crenellations so my final product will feature those as well.  I still have considerable work to do on this and its display table which is well underway and I'll elaborate on in a future post.

This whole setup is on the scale of something you'd see at the 40K TT at Adepticon and not something I could manage if this tourney was at it former home of the Chicago Battle Bunker. Being BBB is a hotel this year free up some of the space limitations.

The Witch Kings ride with custom Minas Tirith style base...increasing his already impressive scale.

 As for my two Armies it my Rohan again that you've  seen last spring, I added  the super version of Eomer and Merry as an cheap aside with my the extra point allowance, giving me a whole bunch of powerful heros giving my Good army a whopping 14 Might.  On the evil side I'm not exactly sure whats showing up, the only model I am sure of is the Witch King...anything else is a time consideration..my original plan was to do a decked out Mumak but I dont think time is going to allow that. So we may end up with Gothmog and rabble of Orcs and Warg Riders supported by the Witch King...if thats the case I really only have to paint the mounted Witch King and Gothmog, I'd love to get the Mumak done especially for the Rohan tie in..but time is not my friend here..I've got about 8 weeks to the event, I'm going to have to start working every night if I want to crank out all the bells and whistles..

This is most likely my last big LotR build for sometime, the attrition of the game nationally has finally caught up with once robust community here..be it burn out, the game and rule changes, or GW killing itself with overpriced models that dont really merge well with the old game that has deeper fan support versus the current "The Hobbit". The sagging interest is pretty apparent, its looks like Adepticon is only going to feature one event  a Team Tournament in side by side format in 2014...which is really only appealing to handful of older veterans and you'll be seeing less than 10 teams for sure.We will probably see LotR drop to "Big Game" status in the future. That being a large scenario event that is not a traditional tournament, a fun get out for us old timers but also a sign that the game has boarded the last ship to Valinor.

Its not all lost though when it comes to good skirmish games...I've been spending some quality time with Warlord Games' "Bolt Action" and it looks like that and Gripping Beast's - "SAGA" have the most legs as far as tournament style skirmish games in the near future. I'm not sure when I'll get around to Saga but I surely already have the figures for it. I do have some cool stuff in works for my Fantasy Skirmish gaming and my Empire of Dead Kickstarter stuff is shipping soon. So I'll be a busy boy this fall down in the basement. First order of  business however is get back to bringing out the big guns for the 5th year of Bilbos Birthday Bash.

Them Reaper Bones a month in.

My Skirmish dungeon as it currently stands, there are several cavern pieces awaiting paint. I dont plan on making this larger than 4X4 so the end is in sight..although I'll painting little details for years to come, I am sure.

 Its been just about a month since my Reaper bones arrived. I've spend a good bit of time messing around with them. I'm sure if you're interested you have already read various reviews on other blogs so mine comes a bit late, but honestly and I am all over the place on my feelings for them.
Rich who also got the Vampire set brought some figures over tuesday and we decided finally play a Skirmish game using Songs and Blades and Heroes Rules by Ganesha Games.

 "Songs"(SoBH) is a popular rule set for Skirmish and its alot more random (and dare I say bloodier!) than what I'm used to with GW based skirmish rules. We played a basic retrieval type mission where each team started at an opposite end, had to get to center to retrieve the artifact and exit the opposing teams end. Of course the Dungeon was populated with various critters and creatures random appearing (or not) at the end of each turn. Turn sequence went Player A/ Monster turn/ Player B/ monster turn. whomever the opposing player was controlled the monsters after your turn.
The whole thing played out quite well, except my team got slaughtered.

 

If you've played SoBH , we used standard 300 point warbands without the personality restrictions as we wanted to try a bunch of different rules. I ran 6 classic fantasy "archtypes" Knight, Cleric, Wizard, Thief, Barbarian, and Witch Hunter who were all Q3/ C3 expect the Wizard and Thief being C1 and C2. Rich ran a Elven Team with Token Dwarf and an Earth Elemental, he less but more expensive figures points wise most of his units being Q2.

We got to try out a bunch of the rules, except "magic" because my wizard got killed immediately on the first monster turn we were engaged, and we never rolled to get the NPC enemy wizard on the board.  In the end I ended up with carving my way through too many monsters, slowly losing team members encounter by encounter.  Rich had better luck, although when our teams finally met  (and I was down to Two figures versus his Five)..I managed to kill two of his before I was wiped out. we scored by total point gathered in kills + your teams surviving points..so Rich won by an easy 3 to 1 margin.We both like the rules but has some nitpicks, this is easy game to teach your kids and as both our daughters (7 and 8) are interested and will be/ are playing.

Torture is Reaper too, but only the Rats are Bones.

Not sure if will play more of this on the club level or not, I am interested in trying out my adapted "Hobbit" rules for generic fantasy that tactically have the familiarity of the classic GW Lord of the Rings rule set with a few tweaks and see how it compares.

Spider Swarm, Scorpions are Bones.

As for Reaper Bones, I find the figures are all over place in detail and presentation while the new material great is for some features. I read, and hear people are having trouble with just slapping paint on them as advertised. ( In my opinion, basecoating with standard paint using an airbrush works great) I dont love having to hotwater bend this many figures and for many of the weapons the hot water method is still useless. The result is if you care about theses unsightly bent ones, many characters will need weapon swaps. Lastly the details on some figures are very muddy, in contrast however to the detail on some figures being clearly excellent. The result is a mix bag so depending on what figures your most interested in will be the deciding factor on this packages overall value.

 I've painted up a dozen rats, 4 swarms,  2 scorpions, the rust monster, several terrain pieces and am working on the Pathfinder Red Dragon. I certainly had no interest in paying $20 for metal bug swarms so I wouldn't have things like this or the ($100+) in Townsfolk if not for Bones, plus my kids who are learning how to paint have hordes of characters to pick from and paint themselves without me worrying about a $10 pewter figure having to be stripped of pink paint one day.

The current retail on the Bones package of $400 USD is clearly aimed people who need a ton of figures on the cheap. From my corner of the hobby that price would never appeal to me in the slightest, and is clearly aimed at Roleplaying Gamers that need masses of figures for gaming. At the Kickstarter price of  $100..this was an absolute steal and win/win for whatever your use of the figures. For me, Reaper Bones are simply not even close to a replacement for quality metal figures or centerpiece monsters but meet  cheap solution. alternative needs where they apply. Its highly  doubtful I will ever buy any more Bones figures, but I am happy I have the ones I do.

Skeletons are Otherworld, Critter in the back is  Bones figure.

I will be painting up alot more of these and when I paint ones, that I have already painted in metal, like the Nova Marines, I'll be sure to post comparison shots.

In other news, Bilbos Birthday Bash is coming up, and while I am working on my armies and display for that I have NOT yet officially signed up for it yet, more on that later., News on Adepticon 2014,  Bolt Action gaming reports, and hordes of Fantasy figures coming this way soon.

Bugs are all Bones figures.