Kickstarter and 3ITC News

Well, it was inevitable, Reaper have launched another Bones Kickstarter, Bones 6 - Tales From the Green Griffin. The stuff looks promising, and it's bound to get better value as the campaign continues.  The core set, as always, has an interesting selection of character and monster minis, and the various expansions look promising.  There's an inn (the Green Griffin), though I have a lot of tavern stuff from Terrainscape, an undead/cemetery themes set, and they've just announced a Fey set.

A few weeks ago I announced the next (third) International Townscape Challenge.  The aim was to have a planning post up by the end of March, and it seems like none of us have managed this.  

We've discussed this, and its a case of real life getting in the way for all of us (I have my daughter's wedding coming up, the others are equally busy with important stuff).  We've extended the deadline by a month.  At least I have decided on my build, the ruined farm from the scenario in the original Warhammer 40 000 Rogue Trader rulebook.  Something a bit different and it should be fun.

League of Infamy Kickstarter

Mantic have launched their latest kickstarter to fund a new board game, League of Infamy.
This is a similar game to Dungeon Saga, but with villains infiltrating (in the base game) an elven stronghold to stop a Dracon breeding project.

I played a test game of this at a previous Open Day, and had a great time; being villains, the characters are out for their own reputations as much as the mission goals.

As always, there look to be some stunning minis in the game, and the two expansions currently mentioned feature some of Mantica's (or Pannithor's) less well represented creatures; halflings and some of the Trident Realm creatures for which we currently have no minis.  I'm sure we will eventually see some of these appearing in Vanguard sets, just as Star Saga minis have been packaged for Deadzone.

Here's the campaign page if you want to check it out.

Bones V

Reapers fifth Bones kickstarter launched yesterday, it's already over $1M!

There's some  nice stuff already, check it out here. and it's only going to get better.

Some Non Surprising Kickstarter News, and Some Surprising Non Kickstarter News

Last week Reaper Miniatures announced the Bones V Kickstarter, to launch in September.  Hardly a surprise, given the success of the previous four campaigns.  There may have been some issues with the production and distribution, but pretty much everyone must have their stuff by now, so probably time for a new one.

It's also not surprising that Mantic Games announced Kings of War 3 to arrive in October.  What may be more surprising is that this will not be funded by Kickstarter.

Oh, and talking of new editions, Frostgrave is getting a second edition next year.

Bones Incoming

I'm waiting for my Reaper Bones 4 kickstarter delivery.  Hopefully I'l have lots of goodies to show next week.

UPDATE
My Bones did indeed arrive.  They are great, really well detailed and I'll have a lot of fun with them.
I'm checking them off to make sure that everything is present and correct, then I'll show off some of my favourites.

Bones IV on its way!

According to the latest update, Bones 4 nears the UK.  By now I can't remember what I ordered, so that should be a nice surprise.

Of course, it also means a lot more unpainted Reaper Bones to paint, and I suppose that we will soon be getting Bones V

Kings of War - A New 15mm Army

Recently a few people have asked me what minis we use for 15mm KoW.  The answer depends on the army, of course, but there is now a reasonable range available.  The more 'niche' and Mantic specific armies don't tend to be covered, but pretty much everything else is.  Personally I use Essex for most historically based armies, such as the human troops in the League, and I'll look at their earlier Medieval ranges if and when I do a Brotherhood force.  Their halflings are good too.
Both Magister Militum and Ral Partha Demonworld do very nice 15mm fantasy, and there are many more.  If you want to know more, check out the 15mm Fantasy facebook group.

With one exception, or so I thought.  Having been awed by the sheer number of attacks Ross' hordes of ogres could put out for a small frontage (especially deadly two against one vs orc hordes) I was thinking about getting some for 15mm, but I couldn't find a range that nicely covered the options in the army list.  Then I literally stumbled over the answer.

Many years ago Merlin and I discovered the Caesar Miniatures range of 1/72, or roughly 20mm, historical figures and collected quite a few of their ancients range for Warhammer Ancient Battles.  I still have a half painted Assyrian army, and quite a few Greeks.  Then Caesar brought out a fantasy range, and it would have been rude not to get any.

Caesar miniatures first box of orcs (random image form internet)

Of course, it was an impulse purchase, or purchases, as we never really got round to doing anything with them.  I had quite a collection of the goblins and orcs boxes, about a third painted, but since I had O&G in 28mm and 15mm they just got boxed and buried, until I knocked the box over.

I didn't see orcs, I saw Ogres.  20mm orcs would make great ogres.
I had two or three boxes worth, some painted with green skins, so I set out to see how well they covered the army list.  Pretty well it turns out.  There are some options not covered, but I knew that Caesar had done a second set of orcs, so I ordered one of those to bulk out and add variety.

I began with a test unit of the least armoured of the orcs.  They would do as the Berserker braves.  One of the sculpts has two weapons, a club and an axe, the other has a spiked club.  In the past I carefully cut off one weapon from the dual wielder, along with the fancy top-knot off most of them.
Ha, a quick read of the KoW list suggests that the berserker braves have two weapons.  I might do some pinning later.  I had originally planned to save one of the top-knotted minis as a shaman, or Warlock for the KoW ogre list, but when set two arrived it has a far nicer warlock mini.  In fact the whole set is generally nicer.  The figures are in some respects cruder; the first set has a much smoother finish, but the second set has far better detail, down to wrist bands with teeth in them.  The only thing that isn't so great is the prominence of the mould lines.
As I wanted to add extra weapons to the berserker braves I went straight on to a horde of warriors and a couple of heroes (Warlord and Warlock).  Here they are, painted and based but awaiting texture and varnish.  I have plans to add a little something to the base to emphasise the scale.

A horde of Ogre warriors

Ogres facing humans.  They look suitably large

Ogre warlock and warlord

To help me remember, here is my ogre flesh recipe.  I deliberately went for reddish skin tones to link them to Mantic's official ogres.
Base coat VGC Terracotta, wash AP Dark Tone, highlight with base colour then up through Gory Red to Blood Red, extreme highlights Fiery Orange.

Of course this doesn't quite cover all the army list entries.  I'll have to do some conversion work for the hunters and for both missile types, and there aren't any red goblins, but plenty of manufacturers do goblins (see above).  It's just a matter of choosing a make, and selling a bit of stuff on eBay to fund them.

You may well ask why I need another army?  Well I currently only have one workable KoW army in 15mm, and I like to have two so I can get people playing.  I am gradually working on Varangur, basing the 'normal' troops on my Scythians, but it seems to be a slow process, especially as I am unsure what to use for many of the units.
Ogres are ideal as the second army as they are relatively few in number, and being neutral, can fight with or against any other army.

Vanguard Trial

I finally got to try Vanguard today against good friend, longtime opponent and blog contributor Merlin.  He had already set out the table, so after a good long chat and 'show and tell' session we got down to playing the game. Merlin, of course, used his beloved elves, and I used the orcs I started here.

A lovely lot of terrain, just right for a skirmish game.

Some of the elves along with their Forest Shambler buddy.

Some of the orcs, including the troll from the goblin band I painted ages ago.

The Gore Rider has just trampled the Elf princling under his hooves, the Shambler soon exacted revenge.

The rest of the orc 'big guns' get drawn piecemeal into the Forest Shambler grinder.

By the end only my troll was left, Knocked down and with an angry Forest Shambler and a spear elf looking down.  Fortunately for him the game ended, but the elves had possession of two of the supply dumps, so had a clear victory.  I let myself get distracted by the elves, and chased them rather than victory points; if I'd surrendered the objective guarded by the shambler, the prince and the wizard I might have done much better, but I suppose orcs will be orcs.  Merlin was also very lucky with his exploding 8s, usually getting at least one each time he rolled, or that's what it seemed like from the orc side of the table.*

I liked a lot of the game.  There were some points we were unsure of, and as it was our first game it took ages to play.  We got a few things wrong as well, but I suspect their effect evened out over the course of the game.

I'll definitely play more Vanguard.  I have plenty of orcs for it now, but there are a couple of troop types I don't have, one of which is important for an alternate warband build I have come up with.  I'll do some better pictures of the orcs soon, and show what else I have for them.  I've also got some dwarves almost finished, so I have the useful opposing force, and of course the goblins I did a while ago, though they are short of their troll now.  "Please mister Krudger, can we have our troll back?".

Meanwhile, play Vanguard!  The rules are free on the Mantic website here.

*They say history is written by the victor, in this case its written by the blog owner.

Vanguard Orcs; Starting the Warband

I received my copy of the Vanguard rulebook a short while ago.  Whilst I didn't actually back the Kickstarter (beyond the $1 required to comment), T'Other One kindly offered to add a rulebook pledge to his order for me.  Many thanks, ser.

A while ago I began assembling and painting a few of the beta test warbands (my goblins are here), but I never got round to doing much with the test rule set.  Now I have the actual book I hope to get some games in.

I thought about which force to concentrate on.  I already have a few goblins, and the beginnings of dwarves and undead for the beta rules, but given the tie in with KoW, it made sense to go for something I already had an army of.  In 28mm that's Orcs or Kingdom of Men, and since there's currently no list for KoM, orcs it is.

I've got a couple of metal minis, the Godspeaker and a Krudger, the rest are the plastic orcs.  I've even converted one of the ax orcs to carry a bow.  There are currently no rules for a skulk, but adding a bow as equipment to an ax orc should give something close.
This does touch on an issue that I and several of my gaming friends have, the book doesn't have profiles for everything.  I understand that Mantic are going to fill in the gaps, and probably tempt us with nice shiny new minis with their profiles.  Commercially this makes great sense.  To an aging gamer like myself it would have been nice to see everything in one book.  That said, it would soon be out of date as new stuff came out anyway.

I'll not say much about the game itself until I have actually played it.  It seems clear enough, and the tie-ins to Kings of War battles are a great idea.  I think it will play very well, though as an orc player, I am wondering how to get more power dice, being limited to red only.  I'll try and get a game in soon and give a more informed opinion.

Ten brown orcs, standing in a (couple of) row(s)

*PS* Mantic have already added some new profiles, including Skulks.  Hooray!  

They have updated the army building document on their website in the free rules section to include the new stuff here.  Their blog on Friday talks more about it.

Must....Resist....

Fireforge, long known for the quality of their historical miniatures, have launched this kickstarter.
It's an interesting project, two (at least) armies of hard plastic minis and a set of rules as well.
Clever move to package infantry in 12s and cavalry in 6s, just right for Dragon Rampant.  The Northerners look very nice, they have avoided the hairy barbarian style of Northerner and gone for something a little more *ahem* 'Stark'.  One of the stretch goals is a force of well armoured Southerners, ideal opponents for the Northerners when Winter comes.
There is a lot I like about this project.  Fireforge have apparently already got the moulds for the initial releases done, so the wait time should be pretty short.  The Undead opposition have nice details such as the inclusion of female bodies in the zombie villagers set, and equipment details to link them to the Northerners.

I do think I will be able to resist it though; I don't want a new games system at the moment.  I may well pick the odd box up at retail, and if I didn't have a goodly sized force of ex-Empire troops for my Kingdoms of Men, I would be all over this.

EDIT: One I didn't resist, Deep Madness has just arrived.  A humongous load of minis, it makes the Conan boardgame seem quite small.
Once I've gone through it a bit I'll post pictures, but the pieces are nicely sculpted and cast.

EDIT 2: the Fireforge Kickstarter did finally fund, though it didn't reach the dizzy heights I think they were expecting, based on the stretch goals they showed.  I'll doubtless pick up some of the boxes at retail; I can see a lot of use for them for both RPG and Dragon Rampant.  They might even make nice Kingdoms of Men for Kings of War, or possibly Northern Alliance when we find out a bit more about them.

3D Texture Stamps

If you build using XPS foam (as I do) and have tried, or thought of trying, textured rollers (as I do) and have a 3D printer (as I don't) then the following kickstarter might be of interest.

The textured rollers should prove very useful for buildings for both RPG and wargaming, and I suspect it is possible to print them out at different sizes to match different scales of buildings.
I've used the Green Stuff World rollers on some of my builds, after watching the Black Magic Craft video on the subject.  As they aren't designed for XPS I sometimes have to go over and deepen the textures.

Terrain Crate Arrives

Terrain Crate finally arrived at the back end of last week.  I have heard quite a few complaints about this kickstarter, both because it has been delayed, and because of the alleged poor quality of the pieces.

Rather than show every piece I got I will show the contents of one of the bags that I have got painted, I'll comment on how good (or not) I think the end product is, and the pictures should allow you to decide for yourself if its for you or not.
I got a couple of the Dungeon crates, one of the Town crate and the Dark Lord's Tower.  Well, the tower and one dungeon crate was for my lad, but those are the crates I have seen.  I can't comment on the Battlefield set.
The pictures show the Tables and Chairs set from the Town Crate.  There are two identical bags of these, so double the number of pieces you see here.

Unpainted, the plastic is already coloured brown, so the pieces could be used as is.

As you can see, the torches are a bit wonky.  The plastic seems about the same as that used in the Dungeon Saga furniture pieces.  I had expected this, and was happy with the result.  Those torches got the hot water treatment, as did the tables, as there were some slightly bent legs, though nothing too serious.

And painted up.  

As you can see, the torches have straightened considerably, there is a slight bend in the banded table, though it sits flat, so I'm fine with that.

I washed all the pieces first, then did the hot water trick on the bits that needed a bit of straightening.  The wooden pieces got a coat of VMC Burnt Umber, then a heavy dry brush of VGC Heavy Golden Brown and a light drybrush of VGC Khaki.  Metal bits, principally the torches, got a base coat of VMC Oily Steel thinned with VGC Black Wash.  Once dry, The wooden pieces got a wash of VGC Sepia Wash, and the metal pieces got Black.  Then it was just a case of finishing touches; VGC Off White for the foam on the pint, Silver for the utensils on the plate, and a gradation of red through orange to yellow in the centre of the torches.  The coals were then drybrushed black.

I missed out the flames for the torches, I might include them on the second set, but I do think they might easily get knocked off and lost.

I think they have painted up well.  It's not an award winning job by any means, but they are only props for the main action, and they shouldn't detract from the heroes and monster minis.

My verdict?  I like them.  They are not the quality of some of the resin pieces you can buy, but they are a lot cheaper as well.  They paint up really easily, I will be getting some more done soon (I needed these for the Thursday night D&D group, so they got priority).  There are some pieces that require some work straightening out thinner parts, (the astrolabe in the Wizard's Study is badly bent, I hope it comes out OK as that is a really nice piece).  Given the nature of the plastic, and the cost, that's not surprising, and seems easy to fix.  The pieces have a few mold lines, but not bad ones, except, annoyingly, across the plates in the Treasure set.  In fact I found several of the tables and chairs needed no clean-up at all.

I also like how they are keeping to a 'look'.  The shield on the weapon rack is a Basilean shield, and some of the barricades and rubble piles contain bits easily recognisable as tables or doors from Terrain Crate (or Dungeon Saga) sets.  I was particularly impressed by the coins in the treasure piles; they have an image on them rather than being plain discs.

If you like them, they are now available on the Mantic website here, though the retail packs are different to the kickstarter packs, the tables and chairs are currently only available in the Dungeon Depths mega set.

The photos seem to have worked out better.  It was a simple matter of using my phone rather than my camera.  How technology has come on.

Terrain Crate on the Horizon

Another 'non post' while I try and find the inspiration to actually finish anything.
(It's a bit lacking at the moment, and when I try and paint, I invariably end up unhappy with the result).

Terrain Crate is almost here.  Apparently it arrives in the Mantic warehouse later this week and is due to be dispatched within a week. I suppose the nature of the product, pre packaged boxes, means that there should be little chance of packing errors, and that the individual orders will be easy to sort.

I'm looking forward to the terrain crate stuff, I love using 3D furnishings in D&D etc, and this promises to be good.

I suppose that means more painting...

Ah well.

An Angry Kickstarter

Just a quick mention of another kickstarter, but a little bit different.

When I'm not painting or modelling I am a GM, mostly for Dungeons and Dragons.  I have found the Angry GM to be a font of help and inspiration, and he is now publishing a book of very useful advice for DMs.  It is being kickstarted here.

Whilst his angry persona might not be to everyone's taste (I rather like it), he still has some very helpful and insightful things to say, and his advice on how to run a 'less worse' game is top notch.

Anyway, take a look at the project and his blog if you do (or plan to do) any GMing at all.  The video on the kickstarter page is worth a look in any case.

Star Saga Mission B

I finally got round to playing Star Saga last night.  We had a couple of the Monday night D&D group absent, so three of us decided to give it a go.
Mission B - The Main Team in the missions book is for 3 Mercenaries, and the rules contain an A.I. system, so that seemed to be our best bet.

As you can see, despite receiving this some time ago, I haven't painted anything yet, partly as I always have a huge pile of 'urgent' things to paint, and partly as I wanted to see if the game was any good.

If you don't know Star Saga, it's Mantic's SF board game set in their Warpath universe.  The mechanics are similar to their fantasy game Dungeon Saga, and like that game and Dwarf King's Hold, it had a forerunner in Project Pandora.

Players control Mercenaries exploring a lab complex and fighting the various lab technicians, security guards and marines.  The whole series of missions tell a story, one of corporate greed and corruption, and black budget experimentation.

Some of the characters have been introduced in earlier Mantic products, such as Blaine and Wrath, the only violent Judwaan.  Others will make interesting additions to the Warpath universe, and I will paint up some of the Mercenaries as additions to my Rebs force.

So was it any good?  Well yes, we really enjoyed it!  The game ran smoothly, and the rules were pretty easy to follow (although I misread the hit points of the lab technicians, so they were an easier kill).  Mantic's decision to include training missions (as the did in Dungeon Saga) and an A.I. make it very easy to access the game.  Using the A.I. is pretty intuitive, much better than the one in Dungeon Saga, which I found overly picky and seemed a bit 'tacked on', though the game is easier for the Mercenaries than it would be with a human (or other sentient species) as Nexus player.

Components wise the game is well done.  The minis are some of Mantic's best one piece plastics, in my opinion.  One of the scenery pieces (the table with benches) is a beast to try and straighten out though.  Several goes with the hot water treatment didn't help much.  The rest of the pieces are pretty good.

I'm sure we will be playing again.  It won't replace D&D or other role playing, but it it s good game to have in the stable for the right situation, and it would be fun to play through the campaign.

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.

Vanguard Nears the End

Mantic Games' Kings of War:Vanguard kickstarter is in its last 24 hours now.  There was quite a bit of comment earlier about lack of value.  I think this has been well and truly addressed by now.
the 'sweet spot' pledge is the Giant level, which gets the rules, scenery and four warbands.  They have also funded a new hard plastic sprue of troops for the Nightstalkers army (sort of Mythos inspired creatures?) and a replacement for the oddly sized old Basilean men at arms.  The Northern Alliance has also seen it's debut, which is the part I am most interested in, as my tentatively started Elf project was themed around the Ice Kin (must get around to finishing that).
I'm currently painting up some sample warbands to give the game a try. The rules seem to play well, with ideas that won't seem too foreign to players of Deadzone, but it's not a slavish copy of that game with just the SF serial numbers filed off; much more a distinct game in its own right.
Give it a look.

Warbands

It should be no secret to my reader(s) that I like skirmish games.  The small size of the forces is a definite plus; you can get playing that much sooner.  I also think it's easier to tell a story within the game, as the miniatures are more like personalities.
Frostgrave is one such, and a while ago I showed my warband made up of various prepainted minis, mostly from the old WotC D&D line.  This warband was only ever meant to be a 'get-me-by' until I got round to painting one from scratch.  Now I am well on the way to finishing two warbands, on the grounds that its easier to show the game to someone with a warband ready for them to play.
For 'reasons' I am theming each warband; this is what I have so far.

Warband 1 'Sons of Empire'.  These are made up of old GW figures, mostly the rather excellent Empire Militia (formerly the Mordheim humans).  These minis are ideal for Frostgrave, although perhaps they need a scarf or something.  They will also do for Ghost Archipelago, and D&D as well.  this picture shows four of the thugs, before I remembered that thugs are supposed to be unarmoured.  I'm sure if I make it clear what the are, no one will mind.

More of the 'Sons of Empire'.  (l to r) Another thug, a knight, borrowing a torso and shield from the Empire command options on the spearmen/handgunners sprue, and two archers.

Warband 2, 'The Men of the North'.  These are Gripping Beast Dark Age Warriors and Archers.  (l to r) two thugs and two archers

More 'Men of the North (l to r) knight and three thugs.  More Gripping Beast.

The Men of the North will, of course, fit into my Blood Eagle games as well, so they are nicely versatile.  No wizards yet, they and their apprentices are still on the painting table, along with reinforcements for both bands.  That's the problem.  Once I start thinking of ways to show the different soldier types, I can't stop.  Already both bands have thieves, men-at-arms and infantrymen on their way to being finished.

These aren't for Frostgrave though.  That said, there's no reason why not.  This is the sample goblin warband for the alpha rules of Kings of War: Vanguard.  I rooted around among my KoW goblins and found what I needed, along with some reinforcements from Dungeon Saga.  Just about all these will find a place in my KoW collection as well as being good for Vanguard, so yet more versatility.

I like the look of the rules so far, and want to try them soon, though I have a DeadZone campaign to finish off first.  I suppose I should get an opposing force as well.  At around a dozen minis that shouldn't be too hard.

Vanguard Is Launched

Mantic Games' latest kickstarter, Vanguard, a skirmish game linked to their highly successful mass battle rules, Kings of War, has just been launched.

The starter pledges allow you to choose either Basileans or the new Nightstalkers.  Further warbands, including the intriguing Northern Alliance, have been teased.

The game also comes with terrain chosen from the Terrain Crate range.

Kings of War: Vanguard

Mantic have just released the test rules for their new skirmish game set in the Kings of War world.  If you check the Mantic blog and sign up for the newsletter you should be able to get it (it might be on their blog by now)

A quick read through suggests that it plays like a combination of Kings of War and Deadzone, in a good way.  This could be great fun, and I'll get some of my Dungeon Saga minis out and put together a force to try the rules out.

The Kickstarter starts on Tuesday november 1st.