Games that intrigue me (Episode 1; The Return of the Mechs)

Hopefully this will be the first of a couple of entries of games that interest me, but I might not be ready or willing to jump into right away.

And unsurprisingly I will break the mould of what these entries are all supposed to be about right from the start.  I had this article written quite a few months ago, but for some strange reason, I never published it.  Here we are, a couple months later and the game I had originally written about has gone from something that intrigued me, to a minor side project.

Without further adieu, on to the actual game!

A couple days ago I ventured to Kingston's FLGS with my good friend Mike, author of the never updated blog A Mere Matter of Painting and I decided to take the opportunity of fantastic weather to make a trip into town from the University.  With no real plans in mind or a shopping list, we browsed the ever increasing selection of non-Games Workscrap products available.  While lamenting that it has now been almost two full years since we have joined forces to do a joint-project, we stumbled upon the starter box set for BattleTech.  Now, I had never played the game before, but it has aways been just under the radar of my "next big thing" project list.  Mike on the other hand had extensively gamed the system back when all of the intellectual properties were owned by FASA, but has not painted or played BattleTech for over half a decade now. (The BattleTech intellectual property is now owned by Catalyst Game Labs and the miniatures are produced by Iron Wind Metals)

Splitting the cost of the starter box, we excitedly returned to campus and the wargaming club to open it up and feast upon classic wargaming goodness.

The box set minus shrink wrap (lasted all of 10 seconds after opening the doors to the club...

Big pile o'plastic.  The two boxes above the pile each contain a "premium model".  Multi-part and made of plastic, these are rather nice and easy to assemble.  Very crisp and clean details.  Sadly, this cannot be said about the rest of the models.  They are not in the same scale as the "premium" Loki and Thor BattleMechs, but rather halfway between that of the BattleForce game (think 1 model = 1 lance and are in about 3-4mm scale) and the actual 6mm scale that BattleTech is played in.  The casting on the models is quite pathetic really and not even a fantastic paint job can really save them.  In any case, Mike and I have decided that we are not going to bother even painting them, instead using them to serve a dual purpose of allowing us to get a hang of the rules before we pick up proper metal Mechs and once they have been superseded, we can use them along with the included hex boards as a board game when we really really don't feel like taking out loads of terrain.

Speaking of hex boards, here is the fully contents of the box!  The major upside of the starter box is its value for money, considering Mike and I split on it.

The hex mats themselves were the pleasant surprise of the whole box.  Made out of nice and heavy cardstock, they feel very nice and the printing quality is very good.  Being double sided, the two mats included in the box give the gamers a good amount of versatility in "terrain".

Mike trying to remember how BattleTech is played.  We got a good four games in that day and now have a hang of the basic elements to the rules.  Unfortunately, the ruleset included in the box is more of a introductory type book and does not cover all of the elements of the game (especially with equipment).  No matter, I picked up the 3rd Edition of the rulebook while on a "me time" trip into town.

Being rather bored of painting ImagiNation models non-stop for the last two months, I decided to switch gears per-say and built and painted my "premium model" from the starter box:

I present to you Loki.  This mech is not the greatest designed mech in the game as I quickly found out in a game.  While its armed with silly amounts of high power weapons frontlined by two Enhanced Range Particle Projection Cannons, if it were to fire all of its weapons in one turn, it would almost max out its total heat capabilities (EVEN with 22 points of heatsink...).  In other words, it will be most effective sitting in a river or lake and blasting away with its considerable firepower.

Not exactly the best painting job I have done over the last year or so, but to be honest, I wanted to sit down and paint a model from start to finish in one sitting.  This also happens to be the first non-organic model that I have painted up in a LONG time.  Interestingly, Mike noted that even my Spaceship project was organic.

One year of ImagiNation: Part 2 (Project overview)

While the last post was chock full of pictures, this one will be rather lacking in them. The goal of this post is to give a general overview of what my project will look like once it reaches 100% completion. To demonstrate this in pictorial format, I have created an organizational chart. They say a picture is worth a thousand words...

So, if we look at the most up-to-date version of the chart, we see that I am aiming for having the following units in my army (boxes in orange signify that the group is fully painted):

 -Line Infantry Regiment
-Town Militia Regiment
-Grenadier Regiment
-Skirmish / Light Infantry Regiment
-Royal Guard
-Hussars Regiment

 I have already talked about the Line, Militia, Grenadier and Hussars regiments in prior posts, so I will concentrate on the Light Infantry and Royal Guard. The Light Infantry / Skirmish Regiment will be just that, a skirmish formation. Using the Austrian Grenz figures from Crusader, these will be more specialist troops and will be used to screen the advancing army.

 The Royal Guard is a formation that came about because when I ordered what I believed to be the remaining models required from Old Glory, instead of being shipping a full blister of 8 infantry models, I was shipped a half blister of infantry (for my Line Infantry regiment) and a blister of command. One of the bayonets was rather badly beaten up and therefore had to be amputated. This gave me a glorious chance to write in some fluff about a possible new addition to my army. The Royal Guard are forbidden from fixing bayonets at any point in battle because in the not so distant past, the members of the regiment bayonetted a commander who failed to follow the direct order of the Duke of Libations. I'm taking advantage of the fact that I was only sent 4 models by getting another blister of the same models and making two units of 6 models each. To make the models visibly different from their non-royal comrades, I'm going to be flipping the colour scheme of the uniforms, so that the main colour is sky blue and the trip is forrest green.

In terms of gameplay, the Royal Guard will be a more elite unit (to go along with the Grenadiers) and will be equipped with rifles, not muskets.

One year of ImagiNation: Part 1 (Finished products)

It has almost been one full year since I have started working on my ImagiNation project. I can't say that I have made massive progress on it, as I was hoping to have most of it done by now. In any case, real life has taken a bit of precedence this year and painting, well, its been on the back seat. Having a girlfriend does tend to soak up all of your free time (not that I'm complaining at all) and leaves very little for hobby work. None the less, I have gotten some decent work done. The next couple of posts will be a resume of what I have been up to over the last year or so and what kind of progress I have made to date.

Here we have the full layout of the project.

The first of four Line Infantry groups. I was mistakenly sent two packs of command and half a pack of line, so I'm still missing a full groups worth of figures. Hopefully the new North American distributor for Crusader Miniatures will be at HistoriCon this year so I can get the remaining models

Up next is the completed Grenadier Regiment. Consisting of two groups of 8 figures and a four figure command, I'm quite happy with them and they were the first and only to date completed unit within my project (still missing a flag though...)

One group

Second group. Now with the Regimental Sergeant Major carrying the standard of St. Trifon the Pruner, patron saint of wine growers...

And the command for the grenadiers

Following the grenadiers is the General-in-Command of the Duchies continental armies. I can't remember what absurd name I gave him, but it certainly has to do with alcohol...

Next is the first of two Town Militia groups. Both of theses groups are of 10 figures, making them rather large. While they have a little bit more firepower then a normal company, groups of this size are slightly more unwieldily and I am going to be playing them as inferior quality.

Command for said Town Militia..

Two full artillery crews. I'm missing bases for the actual 3pdr guns, so they will have to wait a bit before hitting the table.

Finally the first of two Hussars groups that will eventually form a regiment. After some experimenting and playing, I have decided that at a bare minimum, cavalry needs two Big Men (using the Too Fat Lardies Sharp Practice ruleset of course) to be effective. The hatless, head-bearing Serb will serve as the second officer for this unit. Finally a quick teaser for an upcoming game in 6mm to be played with my club.

Onward painting burst!

After a recent visit by Dave of Much ado about Nothing blogging fame, I found a bit of energy and will to paint up some more models. I recently finished the last four models of a company for my Line Infantry regiment. While not the tops of my painting ability, they are very much serviceable for table top usage and do look rather good on the table if I may say so.

ImagiNation update

Finding time and motivation to paint has been a little bit of a struggle in recent weeks. I had shoulder surgery, which effectively ended my "painting spree". Almost two weeks ago now I managed to summon the willpower to sit down and try to use my left arm to hold miniatures while my right painted them.

All in all, not bad as most of the detail work was done before surgery, but I'm not overly happy with how the eyes have turned out, as it was hard to hold the figures steady for the period required. I have the four remaining models for this company now sitting on my painting desk (AKA my work desk...) and I might be able to finish them off this week.

#02 Malifaux Update

Well, being out with a cold today I managed to paint up another member of my Nicodem crew. Mortimer is a Gravedigger and his in-game stats are well... a bit outdated. He is not especially useful due to his low attack ability and his relatively high point cost. Now that Wyrd has released Rafkin, there is no point in having Mortimer in your crew unless your playing a demo or fluff game.

Like his stats, the actual sculpting of Mortimer seems a little old-school compared to a lot of the newer models released by Wyrd. His pose is a little more active then that of Nicodem, but he lacks any real level of detail. The sculpting on his face is just odd and for some reason I could not motivate myself to put in the same amount of effort as I had with Nicodem earlier.

Oh well, the paint job is serviceable and considering I'm not really going to be using him after I pick up Rafkin, its not to bad as a display model.

#01 Malifaux

So, as posted a couple of entries ago I purchased two Malifaux starter boxes, one of Colette's Showgirls and another of Nicodem's Undertaker Crew. The chief reason why I chose Nico was just the fantastic look of the sculpt and I could not resist the allure of painting such a nice model. Being on a bit of a painting roll since starting up an Infinity crew, I leapt into starting work on my Nicodem crew.

Of course the first model to hit my painting rack was Nicodem himself. While working on colour schemes, I was struck with the strange idea that he looked a little like a Napoleonic era Rake / Dandy. The top hat, cane and frills gave me this feeling and thus I ran with it... maybe a little to much as some would note that now he looks a little like a Pimp, but alas, woe is me. Interestingly, since he is a Necromancer, he can summon / resurrect models that are called "Rotten Belles", essentially zombi prostitutes... So I guess it would be fitting if he looked a little like a 90s Pimp.





Base inserts are from Wyrd as well and of the "Graveyard" type.