A Bit of a Change

For lots of reasons I'm finding it harder than ever to stick with one project, and it seems especially difficult for me to finish anything at the moment. So I'm trying lots of short projects to try and get more painting and modelling done. In fact I'm deliberately choosing to switch projects to avoid getting stuck on any one thing.

I've just finished an old Dreadball team which I've had for years. I backed all the Dreadball kickstarters and collected nearly all the teams from the first three seasons plus Dreadball Extreme. I really enjoyed playing the first edition but I've not really played much of the second edition; it does look at least as good, and I hope to get some games in once its safe to do so as I've discovered one of my online D&D players is also a Dreadball fan.

In all that time I've only painted two teams, the Marauders and the initial Human team, so it's long past time I got more done. 

I chose the first robot team, the Chromium Chargers. I had a colour scheme that I thought would be easy to do and give me a quick result. It also gives me the opportunity to reference a couple of TV shows I enjoy. 

So here are the Telosian Toasters.

 The team, well 13 of them.

Examples of the different models. Guards, Jacks and Strikers

The paint scheme was designed to be easy to do to give me a quick result.  A white undercoat followed by a VGC Chainmail Silver basecoat.  Then a Black wash, and when it was all dry, a drybrush of the Chainmail Silver followed by a lighter drybrush of VGC Silver.

I used the Citadel Soulstone Blue I used on the bakehouse windows on the Dreadball glove, and I have since discovered that they do a red, so I might try that on the 'eye'.  The white plate on the back might eventually have a number painted on it, or I might look for some transfers.

You will see that I paint the bases to show the player's role.  Blue for Guards, green for Jacks and yellow for Strikers. I find it helps as some of the models are not obvious as to their role.  I also highlight the front arc on the base.  These are all painted with Vallejo Fluo Colors

If you don't know this team, the robots can transform between roles, initially starting out as Jacks.  I suppose the three Guards and the three Strikers are actually replacements for the Jacks. Ideally I should have enough to replace the entire team, but at the moment I don't.  I think I must have some more somewhere, as I found a bag of the arms, but they will have to wait.

Apart from Dreadball, I'm sure these would fit in well as combat robots in other Sci Fi games, and I have some ideas for that in the future.

New Year - New Game

The postman just brought me a nice box this morning, Dreadball 2, which I backed in the Kickstarter a while ago.  So far all I have done is have a quick look through, but it looks promising.

I played the original Dreadball back when that came out.  Over time, and as the newer teams inevitably overpowered the original teams, I lost interest.  The new edition aims to address the imbalance by starting from scratch.  I don't know how well it has done this as I haven't yet played a game.  Hopefully I'll get some in soon.

The new game has new teams, four in the Kickstarter edition.  Rather than the original 'Restic', these are one piece plastic rather like the Star Saga minis.  The teams are in different coloured plastic as well, making it easy to get a game in straight from the box.  The board is a very nice sturdy bit of card, and I think the hexes on it are a bit larger to stop the pitch becoming too cramped.  The rulebook is a hefty 206 pages and includes rules for (almost) all the previous minis.  Hopefully it will prove at least as popular as the first edition, without the season bloat.

I'll have to dig out some of my old teams, and maybe paint up some of the pile of unpainted DB I have.  A team of twelve or so minis makes for a nice project, and I'm sure there is some crossover potential with DZ for the odd spare mini.

I'll get some pictures up once I've had a better look, if anyone is interested.