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 inmygravenimage wrote:
^You are a very bad man

I know I am. I have accepted this in my cold, black heart.



--Brian

Theophony wrote:

 inmygravenimage wrote:
^You are a very bad man

Says the man trying to lure people into BMG and Gaslands and Harry Potter .

Oh and there's more to come

Briancj wrote:

 inmygravenimage wrote:
^You are a very bad man

I know I am. I have accepted this in my cold, black heart.



--Brian

Well a lovely Easter weekend was had. Aside from far too much food and drink, including a proper night out with wife and NO KIDS (and to be honest, no money afterwards!), Egg hunts and a castle, we even managed to get a couple of games in.

First up was Burning Drachens, the stand-alone balloon hunting Wings of Glory game. Managed to get my dad to play (a miracle I might add), as his latest retirement fascination is WW1 aircraft (notably the Vickers Vimy, but still), so we had a pleasant afternoon in the kitchen making plane noises with the boys.

Also finally got to sit down to play Wreck and Ruin, which is a smashing (ahem) post apocalyptic boardgame:

Off the back of its successful Kickstarter last summer, the retail edition of this post-apocalyptic strategic scavenge and smash em up from local team Dream Big Studios is an absolute riot. 15mm (ish), with an emphasis on finding resources and surviving the wastelands, though with plenty of car-nage too (and dinosaurs), this is an accessible slice of post-apocalyptic family fun.
really it's everything the rather disappointing Fallout boardgame should've been. It's very different to Gaslands, and is more Fury Road than Mad Max, if that makes sense. Much more about dealing with the environment and finding what you can, though you're always trying not to get blown up. Peg slots on the models act as an neat damage tracker, and with 4 factions in the basic game, you get plenty of content for £60. There's nice variety in the models, and the four factions feel, and look, distinctive: Reapers (red) are wild, cannibalistic savages; Salvos (blue) your classic wasteland salvagers; Ruin (green) your militaristic "last stronghold of humanity"; and Desertkin (yellow) shamanic riders of giant mutant lizards. It's immediately obvious what's what, and the models look and feel great. Arguably, the bikes are closer to 20mm (mmm, useful for Gaslands), but that's a very minor niggle as you need something that scale for playability and practicality. Also, did I mention that there are FRICKIN' DINOSAURS with guns on?



The other components are great, high quality counters and tokens, faction coloured dice, an aesthetically pleasing rulebook (with some nice post-apoc fiction too) that's well-laid out to boot. I really like that the map tiles are double-sided, allowing some added variety to your terrain - it's not just "wasteland", different tiles having different combinations of difficult and impassable terrain.

In each game round, players take consecutive turns to spend 5 action points to move (or repair, rebuild or ram/attack) your models across the tiles to reach objectives - an action point is used to move your Movement in Hexes (or turn facing in a hex). Each faction has effectively the same vehicles: A scout bike, a buggy, a wrecker (high armour, big ram) and the big rig. The Wastelanders have dinosaurs not vehicles, and there's pleasing variety in the other 3 factions, but they're obvious enough in terms of size and design to make it clear what's what. The vehicle stats remain unchanged across the factions, which initially feels odd, but actually just makes the game much, much easier to play.

Your main aim is to raid objectives in your turn of the round to gain salvage, which requires a vehicle to remain stationary and undamaged - which is where the car-nage comes in. Rolling attack dice to equal or beat their armour stat (with bonuses if from behind, or ramming with a heavier vehicle) is natural and obvious. Each vehicle has its own skills also, which can be used without using an action point: scouts can attack on the move, buggies can repair, wreckers can ram, and big rig can repair itself, shove others around and soak damage (so, slow but sits on objectives). Action points can also be used to bring wrecked vehicles back - you learn pretty quickly not to be too precious! Once you grab an objective, a new one pops up randomly, keeping the gameplay dynamic.

The variety in the game play comes from the three types of cards. Salvage cards give you bonuses and faction-specific boosts, or penalise your opponent. The event deck, meanwhile, changes the environment every full round (so every player experiences it in their turn of the round), typically messing with vehicles (sandstorms are hard to shoot in, for instance). Finally, each player has their own unique faction card that can be used once per game; triggering this can be the key to winning, so there's plenty of tactical depth in the decision of whether to try to get an early advantage or a late-game boost.
Also, interestingly, there are 4 cards per from, so you never know which one your opponent has - plus, halfway through the game, you get another at random.

This is a fun, competitive, action packed game that'll easily fill an hour or so with plenty of replay value. I think honestly calling it 14+ is unnecessary - it's not at the level of intricacy of other board or war games of that ilk, and my savvy not-quite-9 year old was fine with it. We all really enjoyed it, and it's a great bridge-game, one that properly crosses over in its appeal to board game fans (casual or serious), wargamers or just families wanting something a bit different to get their teeth into. So get Wreckin'!

That's nearly all from me for now.
Everything is packed up apart from the two models for April painting contests, plus paints and green stuff.
Don't have much to do, honest I have, like, a week
Graven

I might have to check out the wreck and ruin game for the motorcycles alone .

Speaking of other games you push like crack . Is Dreadball EXTREME good on its own? I ask because the local shop has a copy with all its parts for $20. I’m not a huge mantic Fan, but the price is about right.

It's... Ok.
However.
It's incredibly good value for 3 teams and the coaching staff. The main Dreadball rules are free just now, so having everything to play? Not shabby.
You'd just need a pitch. Well, it comes with the Xtreme one, and you can play on that; you can't assemble a standard pitch from the tiles in Xtreme. I was really tempted to pick up a copy when Mantic deep discounted it on Black Friday - it was like £15 - but I can't justify another three teams, as cool as the Kalyashi (particularly) are and as generically useful as a sci-fi convicts would be - plus I own the Free Agents (who are now a team in their own right). I just remind myself that there's another team that I don't own that I particularly want (Sphyr, the space-shark guys), and try to calm down a bit

Well now.

Bastard of a day. Other people's children eh?

So it turns out I only have a couple of days to finish the Gaslands monster truck contest

At least it's primed, right?

However, I did make headway on my Azure League contest entry

Pretty happy with her

Should've given her a tail right enough.

Still, I think I should call her done. For a quick afternoon's work, I'm pleased. Just nice to have something DONE.
Can I get the truck done too by Friday? Doubt it

Till next time
Graven


Automatically Appended Next Post:
On a separate note, just read this
https://warontherocks.com/2019/04/how-does-the-next-great-power-conflict-play-out-lessons-from-a-wargame/
Fascinating, if terrifying, article on the US military wargaming WWIII. Whether your interest is politics, gaming, or just the generally alarming state of the world, this is well worth your time.

Yes you can graven.... yes... you... can.

 Gitsplitta wrote:
Yes you can graven.... yes... you... can.

Mayyyybeeee Thanks for the vote of confidence




Greys need to get dark metal, and then sharp bright metals. Bomb in the back needs military green too. Then of course I need to blacken the tyre treads. If I have time - bear in mind it has to be finished by end of tomorrow - a little hypnotic spiral inside the bullhorn.

Huh. Turns out yes. Yes I can.
The Hyp-Hop-Notizer!

Bangin tunes

Hypnotic beats

Driving it home

Mmm, patriotic

Ramming the bass

Also got the base colours down on my Rutherford cars for the youngling.

And finally found a big rig!

Not sure what faction to go with. Probably not one of the Kids' ones, so they can play a big scavenger op against it. The boxes are not attached either - free bonus terrain! Although they're a bit out of scale for Gaslands if you ask me...

Yeah, those are toy crates. I'd use them for a 25/32mm setting (Batman) and put a different load on the flatbed.

I’ve seen some big machinery going down the highway in crates like those. But I’d use the flatbed space for something else, like the teleportation device .

I never had any doubt.

That thing is amazing, by the way.

Briancj wrote:Yeah, those are toy crates. I'd use them for a 25/32mm setting (Batman) and put a different load on the flatbed.

They'd look great with some O Gauge buildings, I reckon

Theophony wrote:I’ve seen some big machinery going down the highway in crates like those. But I’d use the flatbed space for something else, like the teleportation device .

I have a 'N' scale rail fuel tank that I think I'm going to stick on there, CSM tank spikes down the sides, and some frikkin' guns.

youwashock wrote:I never had any doubt.

That thing is amazing, by the way.

You're most kind.

The next Gaslands UK contest is 'Slime', so for me that means my trusty, rusty templars. Reckon that works for the Rig, as that's who I was thinking of doing it up as anyway (Slime are ostensibly my main team, after all). Did a major clearout of old brushes and paint yesterday, and the overall overhaul continues:


The longer I take, I suppose, the less I get done. I can't believe I've only painted 5 models this month.
graven

 inmygravenimage wrote:

Briancj wrote:Yeah, those are toy crates. I'd use them for a 25/32mm setting (Batman) and put a different load on the flatbed.

They'd look great with some O Gauge buildings, I reckon

Where would you get those?

Good work on the bigfoot and that foul miniature.

Briancj wrote:

 inmygravenimage wrote:

Briancj wrote:Yeah, those are toy crates. I'd use them for a 25/32mm setting (Batman) and put a different load on the flatbed.

They'd look great with some O Gauge buildings, I reckon

Where would you get those?

I know, I know. They're right up my to-do list actually, I was having a proper look at them yesterday.

Dr H wrote:Good work on the bigfoot and that foul miniature.

Not a huge amount done last month; indeed, my totals for this year are pretty thin:
Jan 11
Feb 38
March 11
April 5

Ah well. In a bit of a funk anyway, so it's not that surprising. Plus I'm doing more TCG stuff and more building/modelling. Lots of stuff hovers in the WIP stages.

Still, although I'm all packed up, doesn't mean I can't do little things here and there, does it? Does it?!

This month's Gaslands contest is SLIME-themed. Slime are the War Boys faction for Gaslands, and although I have a dragster part-built, it has to be started on 1st May (only 3 weeks for the Gaslands contests) soooooo that leaves my Big Rig:

Not sure about loadout yet, but I do have some design ideas. Chaos vehicle accessory sprue will provide me with spiked rails, to form the sides on the trailer, another truck cab and an 'N' gauge fuel tank on the flat bed - so a clear nod to the Fury Road rig, but with my own aesthetic. From there, maybe the curved spikes to form the ram section. As for crew, I'm thinking some more Mad Cars guys are called for. I'm open to suggests about weapons, or anything else random. Thoughts? The Havoc launcher seems to me to be a good bet, as it feels very Heavy Artillery at 20mm scale.

The Dreadball contest is more tricky. This month's theme is "Violence" so I *think* I'm going to finally do Grak, the Marauder (Orc) MVP that's a murderous killing machine. But that will require me to be back up in action; however, I've got till the end of the month for that one, so not a biggy.

After that, I'm thinking scenery. Onwards, if not upwards.

Later
Graven

If your going for team slime, they scream Australia to me, so go big.....like great white shark big. Something that will just take a bite out of the opponent. Big old ram with shark teeth(spikes) on the front and a paint job to match the old army helicopter gunships with shark jaws painted on the rig .

Theophony wrote:If your going for team slime, they scream Australia to me, so go big.....like great white shark big. Something that will just take a bite out of the opponent. Big old ram with shark teeth(spikes) on the front and a paint job to match the old army helicopter gunships with shark jaws painted on the rig .

Lol you're a crazy man, but I do like the shark motif idea.
Here's where I am just now:

I think I'll take on a bit of Theo's idea, and have another set of spikes on the front grill. I'll call it... Jaws
Need to get a couple of vehicle icons too, somehow.
Front windscreen obviously needs to go, that'll get mesh.
I'm not sure the spikes on the side of the flatbed work. I'm going to move them down and have them supplement the side spikes over the rear wheels, and another set out the back. I do like how all the hooks have worked out though. Ah, the vehicle accessory sprue, it's the gift that just keeps giving.
The regular loadout for a Slime Rig is rams all round and a minigun turret, so a turret is therefore required. I think I'll also add fuel "pods" (it's one of the rig upgrades) - the N gauge stuff was awfy wee so my next idea is whiteboard marker lids, probably four of them to make two long cannisters. I'm not 100% on the truck-cab-turret, open to suggestions there too.
Progress, nonetheless
Graven

Jaws lives .

Do you have any of the old 2nd edition rhino ram spikes, the kind of curved blades, I think those would help sell the chompy action.

Theophony wrote: Jaws lives .

Do you have any of the old 2nd edition rhino ram spikes, the kind of curved blades, I think those would help sell the chompy action.

Sadly not I know the exact ones you mean, I can envisage them chowing down. I'll keep an eye out. Cheers

The leman russ also had curved blades for its dozer attachment.

 Red Harvest wrote:
The leman russ also had curved blades for its dozer attachment.

Yeah, it was the generic imperial tank sprue, I just always used them on marine vehicles.

Ah, it's good to be back:

Yes, desk reorganised and everything, dried paints gone, others reorganised (I own 5 different turquoises. 5.) The WIP shelf is mostly empty, for now.

Let's see now, what's there? A launcher for ultimate. The Wild Rover, my pirate bus. The big Slime Shark rig. Couple of Rutherford cars. And... wait. What's that? Well, just tucked out of sight, that's a bunch of O gauge terrain from the lovely Briancj, that's right up the list. And the back row... Is that BMG figs with paint on?

No. Way.

Yes.

Way.

Bane and mercenaries, Malcolm Merlyn, and Damien Darkh.

It's good to be bad

Just base colours for now. But still, we're back in Bat, baby.

Till next time,

Graven

So you could say....



Sorry, had to! Looking forward to it!

 Paradigm wrote:
So you could say....

Spoiler:

Batman Returns?

Sorry, had to! Looking forward to it!

you are a terrible human being

The shelf of shame is empty! You'll have to re-name your thread.

I guess May the fourth was with you in clearing the shelf of shame. .

Congrats!

Now what will you do?!?

Gitsplitta wrote:The shelf of shame is empty! You'll have to re-name your thread.

Lol for the second time. To be fair, the shelf is no longer empty. It's already looking rather cluttered In theory, my aim is just to have it as a wip space. Primed/built stuff will just stay boxed up till I get round to it. Out of sight, out of mind...

Theophony wrote:I guess May the fourth was with you in clearing the shelf of shame. .

Yeah, but Revenge of the Sixth, the shelf came back

JohnHwangDD wrote:Congrats!

Now what will you do?!?

I know, right?

Maybe this...

Or this...


Not sure how I actually feel about the rolled up sail. It still needs gs work regardless

Started more on the war rig trailer

Although might switch it about, or double up

Did find a curved plough for the teeth. Thoughts?

Had a great time the other night with metropolis and erithromycin for the former's 50th. Naturally, being young bucks, we drank... coffee, ate donuts and played a board game - namely, the new Hellboy game from Mantic.

I've not got my copy yet - hard life being a reviewer - but the KS has shipped, so we got a fair look at it, as well as playing through the first scenario with Hellboy, Abe and Roger (who's from the Conqueror Worm expansion).

It's an interesting game. Very much a high-end board game - not really, even, a board-mini hybrid. More Mansions of Madness than, say, Here's Negan.

The sculpts are good, as are the casts - high density PVC, rather than plasitc, restic, or resin. Crisp and characterful, very true to the comics - you can see the Mignola had a lot of input - and a lot of comic art to keep the feel of it. Likewise, one of my favourite things is the boards; the use of strong, simple comic-style inking makes it very easy to see what's what. The whole aesthetic is bang-on; even the action mechanic lends itself to feeling like the number of page-panels something would spread across.

Whilst the gameplay has shades of other Mantic stuff - notably the variable-spot dice - it's a very different beast, and more reminiscent of a FFG game than anything else (cue many tokens and 3 different sizes of cards). However, it's impressive how things don't feel cluttered, even when there's a lot going on. The coloured rings make it very obvious which player is which character and the upgraded tokens are really lush, from dead nazi clues, to surprisingly cute from swarms to glittering, translucent infernal fires.

The bosses are proper huuuuuge. But he went down.
Afterwards, we discussed whether we felt properly in danger. Now it's a co-op game that strongly emphasises team-based decision making, so that really player to our strengths - we planned and discussed our moves, used resources carefully, and as a result generally did really well in the scenario (side note - love that the scenarios come in sealed packets, so you don't know what's coming). We felt like we were in jeopardy, sure, but actually only Roger ever took damage, and with his ability to heal it wasn't a huge deal. It's a very delicate balance to walk, for a game, and an excellent example of a well-written intro scenario. Need to play more now

Having put my storage back in the study, I've decided to finally, at long last, tackle the boxes and boxes of random stuff in the garage. It's a good thing - found lots of ork bits, which is great for Gaslands vehicles, and if anyone wants a great whacking pile of 40k ork odds and ends, just shoot me a pm and they're yours. Also found this, which made me smile:

One for Briancj maybe

As I say, this is a clear-out. There will be piles of stuff up for grabs. I mean, who doesn't want a set of classic Chimera tracks, after all?!

Adios,
Graven

Classic chimera tracks? And you won’t use them for Gaslands?

Revenge of the Sixth I’ve missed that, is that a newer holiday . Do you celebrate by getting plastered until you feel you have been cut in half?

War Rig is coming along nicely , glad you put stuff under the trailer before the rear axel as I’ve seen what a small car can do to a rig in motion (nothing to the rig, but the driver of the car didn’t fair to well ). It does however bounce the rig off course a bit.

*GRABBY HANDS*