One of the first Fantasy battles I posted about was A Song of Blades and Heroes.
Now the creator of that rule set is launching a new game: "Fightin' Fungi"
It sounds to me like more of the same awesome of A Song, but with unique mushroom warriors and an improved magic system as well as more combat abilities and weapons.
Find out more at his Kickstarter campaign! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/9742092/fightin-fungi-28mm-fantasy-miniatures
If you like quick play skirmish rules that have an active community and creator I suggest you check out the new game and his website: http://www.ganeshagames.net/
'Barbarism is the natural state of mankind,' the borderer said, still staring somberly at the Cimmerian. 'Civilization is unnatural. It is a whim of circumstance. And barbarism must always ultimately triumph.'
-Robert E. Howard
Beyond The Black River
Places of Interest
Saturday, January 24, 2015
D&D Attack Wing. First game.
I am more of a sci-fi fan than a fantasy fan. That doesn't mean I hate the fantasy setting. For example I am a huge fan of Conan. I played D&D in my teens and when I did a lot of war gaming I played Warhammer: Fantasy as well.
I liked the look of X-wing and have gotten a little into it and played a few times. However one of my friends came back from GenCon excited about D&D Attack Wing. He has played a few times after picking it up after Christmas, before but this particular game was new to me.
We picked a scenario that used named dragons, a blue and a copper. I took the blue dragon and he took the copper. We filled out our dragons to 50 points. The scenario involved us in a cavernous lair with 5 treasure piles. If you were within one of the piles you could pick up the pile and see what it was. 2 special items, 2 generic piles of gold and 1 fire trap, that could potentially damage the dragon.
We picked a scenario that used named dragons, a blue and a copper. I took the blue dragon and he took the copper. We filled out our dragons to 50 points. The scenario involved us in a cavernous lair with 5 treasure piles. If you were within one of the piles you could pick up the pile and see what it was. 2 special items, 2 generic piles of gold and 1 fire trap, that could potentially damage the dragon.
Initial set-up two dragons in a lair locked in combat but still looking for treasure. |
In an attempt to recover my breath weapon I chose to put distance between us to give myself maximum time and defense dice. |
I had hoped to have him overfly me but I didn't choose enough movement and although it did allow me to use my tailspike, it allowed him to attack me as well. |
I scored some good die rolls here, but sadly his three dice rolled ALL dodges. The dice do really hate me. |
Wednesday, January 7, 2015
Song of Blades and Heroes. Neither 15mm nor SciFi.
Over Christmas I learned that my girlfriend who had never played anything to do with miniatures liked the parts of fantasy computer games that dealt with combat. The parts played out on a battlefield. These are simple computer driven miniature combat in essence. With this knowledge and a copy of A Song of Blades and Heroes, I felt I could introduce her to the wonderful world of wargames and miniatures.
Problem was I had zero fantasy figures. My solution was to buy a bunch of Pathfinder booster packs and use them to stat up a couple of 200 point warbands.
We had a "Fire" force and a "Forest" Force. We played a find the magic item scenario on an aproximately 3'x3' surface with some pretty basic terrain (I really need some hills)
Roughly the sides were:
Fire: Fire Giant, Fire Elemental, Wizard and a Sin spawn (undead) type
Forest: Forest Drake, Boggard, Wizard and a hound beast.
The battlefield was an road between 2 hills with a stone arch causing a choke point along the road.
The first few turns were spent running our forces to the two closest possible magic locations. She arrived first and rolled that it was indeed the magic item giving her an easy 3 victory points. Once she had the magic item her drake flew over the hill and attacked my forces. Nothing serious occured in this engagement.
Problem was I had zero fantasy figures. My solution was to buy a bunch of Pathfinder booster packs and use them to stat up a couple of 200 point warbands.
We had a "Fire" force and a "Forest" Force. We played a find the magic item scenario on an aproximately 3'x3' surface with some pretty basic terrain (I really need some hills)
Roughly the sides were:
Fire: Fire Giant, Fire Elemental, Wizard and a Sin spawn (undead) type
Forest: Forest Drake, Boggard, Wizard and a hound beast.
The battlefield was an road between 2 hills with a stone arch causing a choke point along the road.
The first few turns were spent running our forces to the two closest possible magic locations. She arrived first and rolled that it was indeed the magic item giving her an easy 3 victory points. Once she had the magic item her drake flew over the hill and attacked my forces. Nothing serious occured in this engagement.
However I took the opportunity to try and outright kill the drake and moved most of my units into hand to hand combat. Unfortunately I didn't manage to kill the drake and it flew away to attack one of my more isolated units, the fire elemental. I survived the initial attack but was pushed back leaving the Drake in the open.
I cast transfix on the drake and succesfully held it. My fire elemental closed and won combat, removing her biggest threat.
I then failed my next activation, trying to play too cautiosly and her hound kept my fire giant and sin spawn busy long enough for her boggard and wizard to eliminate the fire elemental.
The fire giant moves in while the sinspawn deals with the hound, elminating it from play. During the next few rounds the sinspawn closed while the giant fought for his life. He became transfixed at one point, and had a hard time breaking free of the spell, and truth be told we screwed up once here. Missing a quick kill on the giant. That being said the Boggard was killed leaving only her mage
The sinspawn and fire giant attack the final member of her warband, the sinspawn dies in the exchange leaving only two.....
With a swing of his fire club, the mage is knocked down and....
Crushed under the feet of the giant.
Even with her three additional victory points, I managed to win by 1 or 2 points, only because my giant was the only one of my units left. If it had died and my sinspawn had lived, I probably still would have not managed the victory points.
Overall the game went pretty smoothly. She was brand new to miniatures and I had never played the rules before. She enjoyed it and I think will play again. I will need more miniatures though.
Wednesday, December 17, 2014
Battleship: Beginnings.
I'm working to build a basic fleet. My first scratchbuilt fleet. My first fleet. The previous post showed the work in progress on a cruiser and frigate.
I started working on a battleship last night which uses some small hollow construction techniques. I got to a fairly rough shape last night and left it to dry so I could work on the filing and shaping with all of the pieces dry.
I will add another post as I continue with it.
I started working on a battleship last night which uses some small hollow construction techniques. I got to a fairly rough shape last night and left it to dry so I could work on the filing and shaping with all of the pieces dry.
I will add another post as I continue with it.
70mm Battleship |
Tuesday, December 16, 2014
Full Thrust: Revisited
Back when I got into miniatures one of the scratch building searches led me to a facebook group called, "Full Thrust: THE Tactical Starship Combat Rules". Back then I was looking for ideas on scratch building for a set of rules I was working on. A simple set that I could use to show people spaceship combat without teaching Starfleet Battles.
I had briefly looked at Full Thrust and got to the "WRITE YOUR ORDERS" phase and had visions of Engage thrusters at 50%, Come to a heading of 310 mark 15 etc etc. and because of this I moved away from it and continued down my rules path.
15mm wargaming diverted me to ground combat, and away from the navies of space, but I was recently looking about the Full Thrust group and I decided to read the Full Thrust Light. "Wow, these are SIMPLE" Long story short, probably as simple as what I had developed, for the most part anyhow. FTL would be a SIMPLE game to get people to learn and infact I hear it us often used at conventions.
Ok. So I played a few solo engaements with my Silent Death minis from EM4, but wanted to get back into scratch building ships.
I was directed to Starship Combat news for scale ideas and used it to determine the scale for my scratch buils to be around the same size as GZG spaceships. While I was on SCN I went through their foums and came across their scratch build forum. Some of it is ok, some it basic, but one user stands out as a scratch builder over there. His handle is "Toaster"
SCN FORUM: http://www.star-ranger.com/forum/index.php
OMEGA Class: http://www.star-ranger.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=2581
HYPERION: http://www.star-ranger.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=2659
SULACO: http://www.star-ranger.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=7081
MORE: http://www.star-ranger.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=2612
CLONE WARS: http://www.star-ranger.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=6546
NARN: http://www.star-ranger.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=5308
GENERAL: http://www.star-ranger.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=2635
MORE IDEAS:
http://www.star-ranger.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=10080
http://www.star-ranger.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=8017
Using his ideas I have begun scratch building my first fleet.
I had briefly looked at Full Thrust and got to the "WRITE YOUR ORDERS" phase and had visions of Engage thrusters at 50%, Come to a heading of 310 mark 15 etc etc. and because of this I moved away from it and continued down my rules path.
15mm wargaming diverted me to ground combat, and away from the navies of space, but I was recently looking about the Full Thrust group and I decided to read the Full Thrust Light. "Wow, these are SIMPLE" Long story short, probably as simple as what I had developed, for the most part anyhow. FTL would be a SIMPLE game to get people to learn and infact I hear it us often used at conventions.
Ok. So I played a few solo engaements with my Silent Death minis from EM4, but wanted to get back into scratch building ships.
I was directed to Starship Combat news for scale ideas and used it to determine the scale for my scratch buils to be around the same size as GZG spaceships. While I was on SCN I went through their foums and came across their scratch build forum. Some of it is ok, some it basic, but one user stands out as a scratch builder over there. His handle is "Toaster"
SCN FORUM: http://www.star-ranger.com/forum/index.php
OMEGA Class: http://www.star-ranger.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=2581
HYPERION: http://www.star-ranger.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=2659
SULACO: http://www.star-ranger.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=7081
MORE: http://www.star-ranger.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=2612
CLONE WARS: http://www.star-ranger.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=6546
NARN: http://www.star-ranger.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=5308
GENERAL: http://www.star-ranger.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=2635
MORE IDEAS:
http://www.star-ranger.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=10080
http://www.star-ranger.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=8017
Using his ideas I have begun scratch building my first fleet.
Basic plasticard cutouts |
Gluing into a body |
Initial tests. |
Additional details and a few Silent Death escorts. |
Ships need engines but now a Cruiser and a Frigate. |
Monday, December 8, 2014
Smooth Cast 300
All of my castings had been with Alumilite's Super Plastic. It was readily available at my hobby store and I was anxious to start casting starships so I could work on a simple ruleset for ship to ship combat.
Over this weekend I went down to my local plastic store and picked up a $27 set of Smooth-on's Smooth Cast 300 on the advice of the great guys at https://www.facebook.com/#!/groups/Stargrunt2/. It has a pretty similar working and set time when compared with Super Plastic.
However the A and B part of Smoothcast are less viscous which allows it to take finer detail in the molds that are being cast. That is a win.
I haven't seen a compareable size of Smoothcast vs Superplastic in the stores. But I know from the small bottles of Super Plastic I got in a kit, that the $27 set of Smooth Cast will last me a lot of castings.
I also suspect the lower viscosity of this resin will allow air bubbles to be removed easier, although I haven't personally had an issue with it.
In the end Smooth Cast was easily worth the purchase price.
Thumbs up on this product.
Over this weekend I went down to my local plastic store and picked up a $27 set of Smooth-on's Smooth Cast 300 on the advice of the great guys at https://www.facebook.com/#!/groups/Stargrunt2/. It has a pretty similar working and set time when compared with Super Plastic.
However the A and B part of Smoothcast are less viscous which allows it to take finer detail in the molds that are being cast. That is a win.
I haven't seen a compareable size of Smoothcast vs Superplastic in the stores. But I know from the small bottles of Super Plastic I got in a kit, that the $27 set of Smooth Cast will last me a lot of castings.
I also suspect the lower viscosity of this resin will allow air bubbles to be removed easier, although I haven't personally had an issue with it.
In the end Smooth Cast was easily worth the purchase price.
Thumbs up on this product.
Wednesday, December 3, 2014
Blockade Buster - Grav Tank: Part 2
Blockade Buster - Custom Turret
Oil based clay
Polymer clay
Small sticks
Scultping tools
X-acto knife
Super glue
2 part casting resin
Part 1 of this segment detailed how I took a Matchbox Blockade Buster and converted it into a Grav Tank. Well I mostly converted it. It was still in need of a turret.
How would I get a turret? Buy it? Design it in a 3D app and print it?
What to do.
Then I remembered a blog I came across last year. It showed a gamer making custom starships. His method was to take a basic shape, press it into clay and then detail it. Once the mold was finished he would cast it in a 2 part resin.
So using this idea of impression casting with clay I thought it might work to build a turret fairly fast.
The first steps involved taking a polymer clay and creating a basic shape.
The other tool we will need to complete this is a set of texture stamps. These can be made from polymer clay as well and are used to texture the inside of the impression mold.
Once we have the basic shape and a set of texturing tools, we are ready to start creating the mold.
These photos are my first attempt. I feel I did not press the texturing tools in deep enough and got a lack luster turret. The above photo is primed with a black wash. I recast the turret and was much happier.
The tank needs painting, and I may use a different turret, but this shows how you can simply create a fairly cool sci-fi tank for 15mm wargames for not very much money.
Oil based clay
Polymer clay
Small sticks
Scultping tools
X-acto knife
Super glue
2 part casting resin
Part 1 of this segment detailed how I took a Matchbox Blockade Buster and converted it into a Grav Tank. Well I mostly converted it. It was still in need of a turret.
How would I get a turret? Buy it? Design it in a 3D app and print it?
What to do.
Then I remembered a blog I came across last year. It showed a gamer making custom starships. His method was to take a basic shape, press it into clay and then detail it. Once the mold was finished he would cast it in a 2 part resin.
So using this idea of impression casting with clay I thought it might work to build a turret fairly fast.
The first steps involved taking a polymer clay and creating a basic shape.
1. Roll clay out to approximate thickness for turret. |
2. Cut edges off to make basic shape. |
3. Add forward slanting armor by cutting away the clay. |
4. Finalize your basic turret shape. |
5. Final turret shape. |
6. Size test on the grav tank. |
The other tool we will need to complete this is a set of texture stamps. These can be made from polymer clay as well and are used to texture the inside of the impression mold.
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These photos are my first attempt. I feel I did not press the texturing tools in deep enough and got a lack luster turret. The above photo is primed with a black wash. I recast the turret and was much happier.
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