In the Bleak Midwinter

So, a while ago Martin had created a blog post on his start in Frostgrave, another game which he has taken up, with a small collection of models.

At the time I hadn’t the time to look into it, or much of an idea of the system or what models were available or useable for it.

With University finished for the next 3 weeks it has been a chance to catch up with some gaming, with our Infinity saga continuing, including yet another loss in the league, (making me into the Cleveland Browns of the Aberdeen Sphere, with a current 0-4 record...), Martin has also convinced me to start a Horus Heresy Ultramarines force, which is being rapidly built at this moment, and a Malifaux tournament next week, with fixed master format, which the choice of master is so far eluding me.

After a recent gaming night, I realised I had little to read in between building the Emperors Finest, so asked to borrow the Frostgrave rules from Martin (bad mistake), and after the initial skim reading, I had Robbie Coltrane's voice bouncing around my head "You're a Wizard, Harry!"

I then borrow both expansions we currently own, to read up further and plan a small warband to build and paint, with the idea of getting a few games at some later date. However, then I noticed a post on the local Facebook gaming thread about a local tournament/campaign day next Sunday, giving me a new challenge. I will have to buy, build, paint and learn the rules for the game within 8 days!

This gave me something to do for today's nightshift at work, I would read through the book, whilst choosing models to use for my Warband, and order them, to hopefully be dispatched first thing Saturday, with the hope they will turn up early in the week.

Having read the brief blurb on the different schools of Wizard on offer, I decided a Sigilist was the one for me. I loved the idea of a bookish wizard who had read all the theory to spells and adventuring, and had now been thrust into the reality! I had previously owned the Jolie Female Scribe from Reaper, and I felt this would be a perfect choice. Now I had to find the rest of the models to go with her.

I decided Hasslefree would be the best place to look for my apprentice, as I had in mind Alys, who is carrying a large cat, which I thought could be quite a characterful addition, as she looked like a maid, with a large household pet, which I felt could be my scribes ill tempered moggy, with long suffering cleaner who has been pressed into service, with the promise of teaching as a reward.

That was two models down, now I had to decide what to bulk the band out with. There seems to be a lot of choice on offer, although with 300gp left I wasn’t going to fit many of the 100gp models in, whilst still having some numbers. With this in mind I decided to opt for some of the 80gp soldiers, with some cheaper backup, hopefully giving me a good balance of quantity and quality.

At this stage, I had penned in a Man-at-Arms, an Infantry Man, an Archer and a Thug, with 100gp still to allocate. I thought I would find a theme for the soldier models, before deciding what to buy.

So it was back to the Hasslefree website, as I've always loved the personality within their models. It was at this stage that I spotted the Medieval Kids set, and a plan was formulated. I decided the theme would be that the warband was a plucky set of street urchins and medieval school kids who had been brought up on tales of chivalry and heroism, and had begged, borrowed and stolen equipment to venture forth to the ruins of Felstad to seek their fortune and write their chapter into these tales.

Following in the footsteps of Enid Blyton and C.S Lewis, it would be the kids who succeeded where adults could not!

This meant that Jolie was dropped from the shopping cart, andAlys's, contemporary twin Alyx the Wizard would be taking up the Sigilite mantle. Alys would still be my Apprentice, carrying the streetcat Jinks who had been a playmate of the twins growing up.

This left the soldiers, which the initial models would be filled by the Medieval Kids set, giving me an option for an Archer, a Man-at-Arms, an Infantry man and a Thug. I then decided I would round out the collection with Albert and the Village Children. Albert would make a 2^nd Man-at-Arms with the addition of a shield, and I would make a thief out of one of the Children.

So the Warband currently looks like this:

Margery 'The Wise' – Wizard (Sigilist)

Joanna 'The Keen' – Apprentice 

Gwendolyn 'The Bold' – Man-at-Arms

George 'The Stout' – Man-at-Arms

Henry 'The Mighty' – Infantry

Isobel 'The Eagle Eyed' – Archer

Fredogar 'The Brash' – Thug

Judith 'The Silent' – Thief

I have no idea if this is a good selection or not, so I will have to see, hopefully they will arrive relatively quickly so I can get them built and painted in time for Sunday, thankfully the models are relatively straightforward in terms of detail, so I can always paint them basically, and then add embellishments later. I will opt for a fairly rough looking colour scheme, with muted earth tones as my colour palette, to fit with the street urchin theme. I will need to do some converting on Alyx, as her outfit is more modern, so it may require a bit of tweaking to fit with the rest.  

Hopefully will have some photos soon, and maybe even a battle report.

BJ's Nomads Part 3

I like the Tama-thingy-ma-jigs from 2^nd Gig. I got the total reaction remotes to get the Evo Hacker Remoted, to help my Hellcats, because I like machines with personality. I haven’t assembled the Evo hacker yet. I did convert a Hellcat to have a boarding Shotgun. Nothing says, Hiya! Pleased to see Ya! Like a drop troop with boarding shotgun. I like the remote a lot. But the red on it does not pop like the red on my infantry models. I’m not sure whether it’s a colour density or undercoating issue.

So what next? Well Miss Gomez needs painting, and my 5^th wild cat needs converting. I also want to convert an Alugicile to have an HMG. Then, there is my lack of TAGs. That will be at the mercy of ebay and whatever is cheap at the time. I like the idea of a killer hacker bandit as well, and having the option of a two HMG Alagucile fire team. But untills I gets me more minis, or untils I gets modelling, that’s all the inifinity I gots. Peace out peeps, and don’t forget to back up that cube frequently and often….

BJ's Nomads Part2

Senior Massacre is a cool model. A cool back story. I quite like dead pool. Although he was funnier before he was in a movie. I would rather Senoir M. was a bit more Machette Kills, but as he is he also reminds of a Marvel cyborg character whose name escapes me (not an X-man). But the loosing the limbs bit reminds me of the limb-loosing Knight from the Holy Grail. This model was so nice to paint. It was the first time I realised how nice infinity models were to paint.

The vortex special ops was bought for undefined proxy purposes and to get me a Sniper rifle to mod the Interventor. It was also really nice to paint. The added detail on the model looks really natural, unlike the added detail on say WH40pay Legion Arsetraits. I struggled with the face. For anybody who has seen the Hacker Wars documentary, to me he does like an Annon on opps (without the mask). Maybe the St Hammond of the future, but with less hair.

BJ's Nomads Part 1

What do I like about the Nomads? I like their ethos and the way they look. I keep a copy of Emma Goldman's books on my ebook reader and I like people who bravely do their thing; check out the story of the Mexican Village (Cherán) that basically made itself independent – how cools is that! So, I liked the idea of both Corregidaor and Bakunin. Aesthetically I also like the Nomad’s combination of cool lines and funky bits, and the colour scheme (Mark from Battle of the Planets). So I see a lot in Nomads that I like.

Wildcats look very Daft-Punk to me. They can fulfil a variety of roles and I tried to add little bits to bases and little mods to reflect this. The main ones were the Bag to the engineer and a “boom box” with a flashing red light, and repositioning an arm so that I could at some point put a hacking holograph on it. The astute amongst you will note that there are only 4. My final Wild cat will have a boarding shotgun, but I haven’t converted him yet.

The Official Guide To The Reclaiming Of Dromatin pt. 1

Dear diary
We landed on Dromatin this morning after four days of space travel. This is the first time that I've been able to write in here as I didn't want Gauri to see that I have a diary. She'd probably read it all, crack jokes about my spelling (speeling?) being as bad as my shooting and then get angry and rip out the picture I drew of her when she saw it. I think she likes me but I don't want to annoy her; I saw what she did to that Morat when she thought I was unconti-knocked out! For some reason the ship was low on cabins so we had to share a double cabin for the trip. I enjoyed the trip more than she did, she seemed to have a sore head for the first three nights but she was much better company on the last night after we were given a bottle of that Cameronian Firedance. I always thought that was for newly-weds but the crew must've had some lying around and given us it. Gauri's pretty (very pretty) famous so they were pulling out all the stops for their celebrity I guess. It was a good night after that :)
So the next day when we landed stuff got even more crazy. Col. Naysir of the Neoterra Bolts greeted us off our shuttle and called me Lieutenant Angus.
Lieutenant.
What the f**k?
He wants me to command the forward elements of his forces as we take back Dromatin from the Combined Army and Nomads (well, apparently we aren't strictly fighting them but...). I was so shocked I said the wrong thing to his face. What I mean to say was: what the actual f**k sir? I've no leadership skills and Gauri is the one who should be in charge. What I said was: Me? I'm honoured sir. Then he threw me into a car and drove me to what I thought was a junkyard. It turned out to be his command headquarters. Safe as houses he told me before he started to brief me about penetrating thrusts into the arse of the enemy (he made a joke about that and Gauri which made me think he's more of a tosser than I realised) and how with me in charge we'd f**k them good and proper. He adds 'mate' to the end of all his sentences too and claps me on the shoulder a bit too much for my liking. Then he disappeared off to 'source us some scran' and that's when all hell broke loose. I realised my pistol was still in my hold-all (sure that's a dissypli-fine and a warning) and was trying to find a replacement when this alien shuttle appears overhead and these Fraacta drop out. I'd seen that sort of ship on Paradiso when they assassinated Major Ramirez with those drop-troops. They must've been trying to kill Naysir in the same way. 4 of them avoided the AA guns (2 got totally f**ked) and started shooting everything and anything. The only thing I had to hand was a pen I'd borrowed off Naysir's aide and a chair leg after the one I was sitting on got blasted from under me. Luckily I've been hitting the gym with Gauri and was able to close the distance to the first one as it was reloading. I smashed it's head with the chair leg (feel sick just thinking of it) and as the other one turned towards me I stabbed him in the eye with the pen (should have worn a helmet). The last two had me though and would have killed me for sure if Gauri hadn't turned up at that moment and shot them both. She used my pistol though and so now Naysir wants to give me a medal for saving his junk-headquarters, I tried to tell him that it wasn't me, that Gauri was the real hero, but he didn't listen. I genuun-really think that he hasn't heard of Gauri Bipandra. I can tell she's pissed though so I'm taking her out for dinner tonight in the safe side of town. I secretly packed one of her dresses in case we had a chance to go out so I'll put on my Parade suit (I'm sure she likes it) and take her dress over, let her get changed and take her somewhere nice. Oh, and I better tell her that I've had her transferred out of the barracks and into the officers quarters. We're sharing a room again but it was the best I could do. I do hope her sore heads don't affect her like they did on the trip here.

Gauri and I try out some new TO camo they are trialling on this front. You can see Col. Naysir behind Gauri in the blue suit.


Dear diary
We landed on Dromatin this morning after four surprisingly short days of space travel. This is the first time that I've been able to write in here as I didn't want Angus to see that I have a diary. He'd probably read it all, try to crack bad jokes about my poetry and draw a penis in the margins just to wind me up. I know he likes me but he just can't help himself, he's just so immature at times. For example some jack-ass had put us down as couple(!) on the flight manifest so we had a double cabin booked for us. I was fuming when I found out and ended up telling him that it was due to them being low on cabins as last time that happened her referred to me as Mrs Angus when speaking to that vegetable-headed Tohaa delegate. Then he had the cheek to ask when we would-
Anyway, just when I thought the situation couldn't get any worse (and trust me, 4 nights with an excitable Angus is bad, I will need to convince him that Cameronian Firedance is a hallucinogenic) we landed on Dromatin to be greeted by Col. Naysir of the Neoterra Bolts (whom I was mistakenly under the belief to be a tactical genius and keen military mind) who greeted us as Lieutenant Angus and his....?
Lieutenant.
For f**k's sake.
Never mind the personal insult that the Colonel thought I was a maid-servant or groupie, let's just focus on Fusilier Terrance Angus being promoted to Lieutenant and thus one of the big players in the reclaiming of Dromatin. Then he was whisked away in an official car and I was left with all our luggage. Including Angus's side-arm. Honestly.
When, predictably a small strike team of those Fraacta ('renegade' Tohaa apparently) dropped from a shielded transport that had evaded our low-orbit scanners, he was unarmed and would likely have been shredded if I hadn't been heading over with his migraine tablets and weaponry. And what the hell he thought he'd do with a pen and chair leg is beyond me. How none of the blood on him was his defies belief. I stupidly used that over-sized pistol he has to kill them so everyone thought he'd killed all 4 as all the other people there were killed and now Naysir is making noises about giving him a medal for saving his Command Centre. More like junkyard office if you ask me. Un-f**king-real but this appears to be my lot, allowing others take credit for my hard work. I sometimes wonder why I love Angus considering how much grief he causes me... I can't believe they've put him in the officer's quarters and left me in the regular barracks. He better get this groupie out of this dive or there will be hell to pay.
Oh my god, Angus is heading down the corridor in his Parade suit. Is that my tiny white dress he's carrying? But it barely fits! What is he doing...?

Don't You Want Me

Poor Hector, Tamer of Wild Horses, Defender of Troy, and the first of the recent big-screen Incredible Hulks. He was purchased amid a way of excitement following the listening of Mayacast's Homerid heroes in Infinity podcast and a quick online rereading of Rosemary Sutcliffe's classic 'Black Ships Before Troy' along with the new Shock Army of Acontecimento boxed set. The aim was to effectively finish the great PanO for the time being and start my new Steel Phalanx force based off the Trojans (no Achilles/Ajax/etc) with Hector, Penthesilea and the other dude with some Myrmidons and others. I was excited, Hector was excited, even Ben and Sean were excited for the latest round of paddlings I was going to be handing out to them. I actually heard Ben say how much he loves facing ODD without any decent MSVs...

Just look at how hopeful and excited Hector and Marvin the Martian are. And the Shock Army are all geared up for war too. What could go wrong? (Wait, what's that behind the Acontecimento Regulars...?)
EBay.
EBay is what could go wrong. No, my account hasn't been hacked again. There's not been a repeat of the 10 square metres of leather, ball-gag and ass-less chaps fiasco. But what has happened is that I was randomly slinging bids across EBay at anything that I could stick money to. This included a Tohaa army, some Haqq and some random Combined Army, The Tohaa were halfway tempting, the Haqq could be turned into my Kum force and the CA were a flighty choice with loads of random choices; there were a few boxes of different stuff. Then the usual EBay curse struck and some dude cracked out his Barrett .50 cal and took potshots at all my auctions, running out of rounds on... the Combined Army starter set (effectively the Onyx Contact Force starter set). This gave me a solid starting place, and like the Shock Army starter it's quite loaded with SWCs (Multi Sniper Rifle, Umbra with an empty hand that can ANYTHING I WANT, the Fraacta drop trooper with the option of being a hacker) unlike the Corregidor/Corridor suppression force (everyone with a combi rifle). So naturally I was restrained and didn't spent any more money on them.
At all.
And that was that.
Bullshit.

The usual monetary restraint was displayed and a couple of minor things were added. An Overdron Batroid, the Morat Aggression Force, a Krakot Renegade, a Kurgat Engineer (in the post), a Malignos hacker (unbuilt), and Kornak Gazarot. It must be said that at first I was totally unconvinced by the CA but I think this is because the last range of them had some dreadful models. Plus I hadn't read the background so assumed that they were just the stereotypical alien bad guys. Now that I look at them I really like the Halo aesthetic and having read their background I really like them, the misguideness of the EI (but not outright evil) and I've got a good idea how to paint them (glossy black or purple, a la Halo). They look like they play very differently to the PanO; no Knights, a lack of heavy infantry, some really cool different units (especially the Shasvastii), and some very interesting Link Teams. Oh, and plasma weaponry. I find that plasma always brightens up both players days, regardless of the game. Nothing excited me more in online Halo than seeing my opponent's plasma rifle overheating. Albeit this was generally after mercilessly gunning me down and the overheating was from firing his gun in the air shouting 'Aaaaaaarrrrhhhhh' but hey (you have to watch me playing Halo against other players to appreciate just how bad I am. It is a huge consolation to me to know that not matter how bad I am at tabletop wargaming, i will never be as bad as I am at online shooters). Don't get me wrong, I love my PanO, but a change is good too. I am hoping to hit the tournament scene next year, which will be with my PanO, so knowing some of the enemy will be an advantage. I will trying them out next week, a Vanilla CA list to see how they play.
All of this makes my Aleph very very sad indeed.
And so the Trojans buried Hector, Breaker of Horses
(and abandoned the PanO to fight the Combined Army on their own out of spite...)

Well pass me my stuns, my boarding shotgun and that 6-pack it's mission time! I go away, and come back and find my fellow gamers are finally playing Infinity. I should be happy, I am. I just wish they had started earlier. I wish they had started when I did, 18 months ago when I was painting Inifinity figures all by myself. You can paint by yourself, but I am too old to play by myself. Anyway no inunendo on this blog. It gets exhausting.
I also come back to find the usual lack of monetary restraint (Martin), and fevered multi-army purchasing (Ben) and the real life tacticool option being persued (Sean). Arms races, mission creep and military details.

In infinty I collect and painted Nomads (deliberate mix of tenses). I haven't played yet. I still have more to paint. I play Corregidor, but I would like to collect all three.
Some pictures below. More in future days when I find them, and then more as I paint more and as I loose to the other three who have played more games than me. Still that's what cubes are for; to upload, try again and get painted all over the wall.
My current development plans are to get some cheap infantry, maybe a bandit, get some JC-Tags and then prepare for Tanguska, or maybe Bakunin if the former is a long way of in the development process.
Below is a stop gap picture, until I find pics of the rest of my models.

Inifinity was the first time in a long time that I paid careful attention to skin tones and cut the GW-metalics from figure-painting - although I used it on the bases. After 20 years, it was also the point at which I decided I would not undercoat in black anymore. It was also the first time I discovered the joy of not painting 20 figures at a time, and realised that big-headed heroic models make detailing easy, but that tiny heads look better. Good times. That is good times18 months ago when I first wanted to play Inifinty.
Peace, love and safety off mission is go, go, go!
BlauJ