New Year, New Army

Yes, I know it's almost the end of February, but I stand by this title.

I recently acquired a Dark Legion army for the game Warzone at a discount from a distributor we order from, and thought I'd give it a shot.

The whole shebang.

Now, I haven't been the most pleased with Prodos' sculpts. I Kickstarted Warzone years ago and got some Brotherhood figures that I built, painted, and played with. I found the material tough to work with, the casting sub-par, and the detail too much and too small, making painting a chore. I wrote this off as working through some kinks in the Kickstarter process, and happily bought a Capitol starter set, which remains unpainted to this day.

I noticed one thing as soon as these Dark Legion boxes arrived at the shop, and that was new box design. In fact, a lot of them had the Warzone Resurrection 2nd edition logo on them. When I opened the boxes I noticed that the material is markedly different than anything I've seen Prodos offer in the past. Instead of clipping the pieces off of these huge trapezoidal pieces of resin, they were separated and in baggies. The material was tougher, more defined, and grey as opposed to this powder blue.

Necromutant Squad

Overall I'm much more impressed with these figures even though there are some odd casting mistakes such as this:

look at that flash under the arm. That's the
opposite half of the arm showing through.

I want to raise another point as well. That of bases. Warzone Resurrection uses round-lipped bases, the same ones Warmachine/Hordes, Dark Age, and many other miniatures games made after 2003 use. I'm not a huge fan of these. My issue with them is one of aesthetics: a base is a way to present a model. It is often done up to bring cohesion to an army, and it's a platform that keeps the model from falling over. A lipped base encroaches on that space. What do I do with the lip, paint it the same color as the material and thus have this strange-looking blobby hill that the model is surrounded by? Do I paint it black like many studio painters do and have this donut-shaped edge encroach on the model? It's constricting, and I've actually gotten tired looking at these bases.

My solution was to go with beveled bases. You'll recognize these as the ones used by Games Workshop, Corvus Belli, and Target Games back in Warzone's 1st and 2nd editions. GW actually has a huge assortment of round and oval bases in their web store, so replacing 40mm, 50mm, and even 80mm bases is a breeze. The one sticking point is 30mm bases. The round-lipped bases are a unique size. Most model manufacturers make a 25mm base 'cause it's an inch. Boom! Easy. Most models' footprints take up an inch of space. Lately GW has even been producing 32mm bases, but there's the problem: it's too big.

If I ever wanted to play in tournaments or against people outside of my Warzone gaming circle (currently there's three of us) it may cock some eyebrows that I'm putting some models on bigger bases. Some might think I'm trying to gain an advantage by doing so. While I don't see myself doing either of these things anytime soon, it'd be nice to give my army some flexibility. The worst that could happen is that my search yields nothing, I go for 32mm bases and the world doesn't end.

Then I stumbled upon Armskeeper. No link is provided because their website is non-existant. A Google search revealed that they make 30mm beveled bases, and that while they're not available through our distributor (they may not even make them anymore), they're readily available through Game Kastle in California. I try and avoid online shopping, but when I do I try and order from brick-and-mortar stores. They sent them to me lickity-split, and for cheap considering I'd be paying for shipping from the US into Canada. I got them in under a week, and they're perfect.

So here's my first squad all assembled. I'm not going to work on too much more right now. I just moved into a new place, and I'm actually waiting to see if I get accepted into an even newer place, so I may be moving again in a month. I'd hate to have any models of my great new army damaged or lost in the move.

Lookit those beautiful, simple, bases!

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Mayhem and Miscellany

What a whirlwind two months!

There's been a ton of gaming packed in, and even more miniatures painting, and if I may say so, I think I've outdone myself with speed and quality.

This month started out with some Hobbit Strategy Battle Game hobbying. My gaming group heard rumblings that 40k was getting a re-boot, and so we were in that strange gaming limbo gamers often find themselves in during a changeover in rules. Oddly enough, every time this happens it results in us dusting off the Lord of the Rings or the Hobbit Strategy Battle Games.

For this short dalliance, I painted up the last four figures my men of Númenor needed.

Isildur and his bros.

 We played some games, had some fun, but it was time for me to get back to my Slaanesh army for Age of Sigmar. There was the Wet Coast Grant Tournament coming up in July and I couldn't waste any time painting the last 1000pts needed in the army. I had struggled to get the first 1000pts painted in time for the Wargaming Without Borders (WGWB) tournament at the end of April and didn't want to be stuck doing the exact same last-minute stress-job on some figures (spoiler alert: I was).

Then the Warhammer 40,000 boxed set (Dark Imperium) got delivered to the shop. I painted up the Primaris Marines and Darren painted up the Death Guard, but they had to be done by release day on June 17th. I pulled some all-nighters and got them finished, mostly. I still need to do two highlights on the armor, but they're definitely table-ready.

Clockwise from top: Primaris Ancient, Lieutenant 1, Captain in Gravis Armor, Lieutenant 2

Inceptors

The whole shebang. 980pts (51 power)

Intercessors 1

Intercessors 2

Hellblasters

The next step will be finding out what size of game the Foodhammer tournament will be later this year, and work up towards it. The starter set has 969pts of Primaris Marines, and I have a grand total of three sets worth. 

Then after that is was right back into my Age of Sigmar force. I struggled to get 2000pts painted, and did so just at the last minute. I had a great time at the Wet Coast GT, and if anyone reading this can get a chance to make next year's (rumor has it it will be in February/March 2018), it's well worth it. I went 1-4, but won Best Painted, and (most-importantly) had fun. 

Game 1 vs. Ironjawz

My knights were no match for his Gore-Gruntaz

Oh look! More Gore-Gruntaz...

Guess who won?

The hell are you doing in the middle of nowhere?

Game 2 vs. Blades of Khorne

Don't crowd, lads!

20-year difference in models.

Daemonettes are not known for their attrition.

Game 3 vs. Flesh-Eater Courts

Game 5 vs. Disciples of Tzeentch

I'm so glad Tzaangors are back.

I actually did alright on this flank.

Now, I've gotten myself embroiled in an Age of Sigmar Skirmish campaign, which has me painting up these guys:

Which got me thinking: "Why not do a Stormcast army for Foodhammer this year (provided it's only 1000pts like WGWB was)?" So I picked up a box of Judicators (the old box that just had five), and crammed it into the army you get in the AoS starter set (the big one), and voilà, 980pts!

So that's what I've been up to these last two months: painting furiously with no sign of stopping. Now things can calm down a bit. I still need to have three Stormcast figures (a Lord-Relictor and two Liberators) painted for the start of the Skirmish campaign on the 22nd, but Foodhammer isn't until late Fall, and with plenty of notice I can avoid the follies of this Spring's scheduling.

On the Mutant Chronicles front, I haven't done much. I printed out the Venusian Apocalypse pdf I bought and am prepping for the long-haul of the campaign (which should begin in just over a month). I'm really excited! I love the RPG, and I'm glad my gaming group (who have no prior Mutant Chronicles experience) are excited about it too. 

I bought a "Blast Zone" F.A.T. Mat to simulate the bombed-out no-man's land of the Martian front, and Mitch Hunter to add to my Capitol force, but painting the starter box I already have has got pushed further back with all the Games Workshop excitement that's been happening these last couple months. I'll keep plugging away at them, but with my gaming group infatuated with 8th edition 40k, it's looking like the majority of my Mutant Chronicling this year will be the RPG and maybe the Siege of the Citadel, if that gets released.

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Just Another Mutant Monday

Another month where I've done nothing Mutant Chronicles related! But, I did promise that I'd check-in even if that was the case. On one note, I did propose (and was granted the permission) to run Mutant Chronicles as my RPG group's campaign in the late spring/early summer. I'll be running the updated Venusian Apocalypse campaign that Modiphius put out.

Meanwhile I've finished my 1,000pt Slaanesh army for Age of Sigmar, and the tournament was a success! I came in 6th place out of 21 gamers, and I won Best Painted! I'll post a picture as soon as my cellphone camera works again (long story). So now I have a bit of painting time before I expand the army to 2,000pts for the Wet Coast AoS tourney this summer. I plan to fit in some of my Capitol troopers in that time.

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Procrastinating and Doom Troopinating?

So March was a bit of a weird month for my hobbying, in that my social life reigned supreme over all. Not to brag, or nothin' but I was super busy being popular, you guys.

Anyway, instead of painting daemonettes for the Age of Sigmar tournament that's happening in two weeks (eep!), I decided that my precious hobby time should be concerned with sorting 20-year-old cards.

Voilà

So, it's a maddening process, mostly because I have thousands of Doom Trooper cards, and I'm organizing them in an insane method:

First I'm organizing them by set, chronologically. Then I'm organizing them by card type (color), then I'm organizing them by faction (icon in the top right corner), then they'll get organized alphabetically. But of course I'm leaving space open for any missing cards ('cause I don't got 'em all), so that's where that list on the clipboard comes into play.

That's a list of every card made for Doom Trooper. The problem is that it's not organized by set or type, it's just alphabetically with the set in brackets. So what I'm going to do is use different-colored highlighters to highlight the various sets, and then go from there. 

Now of course, this project is put on hold mostly because it's fucking insane and I need to work on these goddamn daemonettes before this Christ-cursed tournament!

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SLAAAAAAMMMMMBOOOOO!

Well lookey what GW released last weekend. Turns out I own the original Slambo (well, the pewter one that was available when they still had a Bitz Order service (mid-2000s)).

I'm gonna paint these two maniacs, and I'm gonna paint 'em Slaaneshi!

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Martian Madness

So, things go slowly on the Year of Mutant Chronicles. Hey! Don't blame me, Cardinal damn you! Blame all the great stuff that Games Workshop's putting out (and blame the fact that I'm king procrastinator, and am dragging my feet painting my Slaaneshi AoS army).

So what has been done so far? Well, I've begun reading a book (haven't finished it. Got distracted by Designers & Dragons), and I did some bases!

These were all done using the new Citadel Texture Paints, specifically Martian Ironcrust. I agonized forever over what to paint the bases of my Capitol troops to get that particularly Martian look. I settled on some weird concoction that used a lot of inks and washes, and to be honest I was so bummed about how crappy it looked that I completely forgot what I did. So I cracked these guys off their bases (not easy to do with resin figures), and put 'em on new ones and just painted the Martian Ironcrust on using the M Texture spreader (which looks gimmicky, but trust me, it works). Then I drybrushed it gingerly with Kindleflame and voilà! As you can see, as the Martian Ironcrust dries it cracks, giving it that desert mesa look.

Anyway, I get that in the Mutant Chronicles universe Mars is terraformed, but I imagine there's still some rusty deserts out there.

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I DID IT!

You guys, I did it!

It only took me 2.5 hours, one glass of wine with dinner, and three beers, but I finished Morg 'n' Thorg! This bully's ready to hit the pitch.

Alright, I'm off to bed.

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An Ogre Enters Play

This Saturday one of the cards participants in Blitzmania receive allows them to hire an ogre for their team. Well, seeing as Games Workshop hasn't released an ogre figure for Blood Bowl yet, I'm painting one!

1990s Morg 'n' Thorg

Also, seeing as I won't have time to paint him tomorrow, I'm going to paint the whole figure tonight! Ladies and gentlemen, start your timers!

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A Very Mutant January

Actually not. Sadly, January contained no Mutant Chronicles madness aside from reading a book.

The month of January has been all about painting my Chaos Dwarf Blood Bowl team in anticipation for Blitzmania, the worldwide Blood Bowl league happening at independent games shops all 'round the world (more on that Tuesday or Wednesday).

However, my one foray into the Mutant Chronicles universe so far this year came when I picked up the third and final book in the Apostle of Insanity Trilogy: Dementia by Michael A. Stackpole.

The first book in the series was In Lunacy by William F. Wu: a cyberpunk romp that was very compelling, but laced with some eye-rolling catch-phrases ("Zowee!"). Overall I liked the first book a lot, and if you own the first edition of Warzone you'll notice that most of the pictures in the book follow the story of the novel. The second book was Frenzy by John-Allen Price: a military adventure with some cringe-worthy derogatory terms for employees of the Mishima corporation, and plenty of Capitol Hoo-Rah! Less enjoyable than Mr. Wu's venture.

Anyway, I'm actually just halfway through Dementia (what a statement!), and I'm enjoying it. Stackpole is so far the most talented out of the three, and it's a neat little spy novel, and will hopefully wrap-up the trilogy nicely. I will admit, despite the pulp nature of the trilogy, I'm really drawn in to what happens to Lorraine Kovan, the MacGuffin in the whole trilogy.

So yeah, not much this month on the Mutant Chronicles front, and not much for the next couple months either, as I scramble to finish a Slaanesh daemon army for an Age of Sigmar tournament in April, but after that I'll hopefully be pulling double-duty of painting my Capitol force, and running an MC campaign (should my gaming group vote for that as our next game). Hey! I told you I'd update you even if nothing's going on.

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Crappy New Year!

Alright, it's been over a year since I posted this article where I set a goal for myself as if that year's gaming endeavors were a game. So how did I score? 13.75: Minor Victory. Callooh callay!

Let's break it down:

1. Blog More

Well this one just barely made a dent in the score. To be honest, I could've done better. Some months had only one post and the biggest gap was four months of not posting in June, July, August, and September! I'd like to keep this resolution for this year, but try to do so at least once a week. I think there's a lot of things I could post on, and a bit more self-discipline could maybe be the beginning of something more productive.

2. Paint 1000pts of Capitol for Warzone

Yup, didn't do this. More on keeping this resolution into 2017 later.

3. Run a three-session Mutant Chronicles campaign

I actually did more than this! It was fun, and I'd love to do it again (especially since Modiphius ported over the Venusian Apocalypse campaign to 3rd edition). More on keeping this resolution into 2017 later.

4. Play through the Age of Sigmar Path to Glory campaign

Nope... Didn't do this one either. Campaigns require a lot of commitment from everyone involved and my group didn't have that last year. Maybe I'll give it a shot again...

5. Speaking of campaigns: Run a Kings of War campaign

See above...

6. Attend at least one KoW and Star Wars: Armada tournament

I did two of one, and none of the other, though I did run the Star Wars: Armada regional tournament this year (note: I didn't count that in the score). I'll keep the Armada resolution, but maybe scrap the KoW one. I imagine if I get the impetus to play KoW again this year a tournament shouldn't be too hard to come by considering the traction the game has with my friends.

7. Paint an elf Kings of War army

Did not do this...

8. Play four new mid-level Eurogames this year

This year I played Kemet, and Isle of Skye (and correctly predicted that one's victory in the Kennerspiel). I'll keep this resolution for 2017

9. Play a serious game of Battlelore 2nd Edition

Sadly I didn't do this. I still love Battlelore and will keep this resolution, but it looks like Fantasy Flight Games might be stalling out on support for the game in favor of the Runewars miniatures game they're releasing this year (which I will probably give a miss to).

10. Just to make it an even ten: Run The Enemy Within Campaign for WFRP 1st or 2nd Edition

Nope. But I am playing in a 2nd edition WFRP campaign right now (The Thousand Thrones). I'd like to try this in 2017.

So what's in store for this year beyond the repeat resolutions above? Well it occurred to me while I was perusing the new 2nd edition of Warzone: Resurrection (which I love pedantically mentioning would actually mean it's Warzone's 6th edition) that there are a lot of Mutant Chronicles-based games available in 2017. There's Warzone and Mutant Chronicles RPG already available, with Siege of the Citadel and Doom Trooper on their way. This presented me with an interesting objective for this calendar year: I'm going to make 2017 the year of Mutant Chronicles!

I'll be checking in a least once a month to see what experiences I've had in that universe. Whether it's something as mundane as painting a Warzone miniature, to going to a tournament or running (or playing in) a Mutant Chronicles campaign. Even if I've done nothing I'll write about why that was, or how I plan to rectify that fact. Personally, I can't wait. I'll use the label "MC2017" to mark all the posts. See you all on Venus!

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