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Finishing a 10 year long WIP is still finishing a WIP , besides there always new tricks learned along he way to help old projects.

Blue man group look s cool as well, like the spot colors on their chests.

youwashock wrote:Eh, you jazzed them up a bit. Totally counts. The captain looks quite cool. The size difference in the Blaines is funny. The dread looks awesome enough to have taken 10 years.

Yeah, it's crazy! Coach is nearly the same size as the V2 MVP but still a bit small. Dread has been a labour

LavuranGuard wrote:Nice job, always hard to do something on transparent minis to make them more than just plastic shapes, but you've managed here.

Why thanks sir!

Theophony wrote:Finishing a 10 year long WIP is still finishing a WIP , besides there always new tricks learned along he way to help old projects.

Blue man group look s cool as well, like the spot colors on their chests.

Very true. And yeah, thanks for noticing - wanted to indicate their field positions in a different way.

Next team done: The Rejects -

Not pictured - another Striker robot. He's identical to the one on the left hand end. You may notice there's 2 tree things - I have doubles of everything, so this will at some point be a "full" team. There will be more modifications - eg the trees are painted slightly differently, but may get boiling water reposing treatment. So another 11, anyway.
I do like the summer holidays.
Also, further progress on the Lava Louts:

Looking much better now, I think. The rest of the team have had their base coat of yellow. Might have them ready tomorrow. We're playing ultimate league game one, but the wife has all manner of chores for me to be fair though, one of those is Play with pressure washer she bought on prime day
Today, played some pokémon with the wee fella, and some Turbo with the bigger one - Turbo is essentially each player gets 2 boosters of transformers, play with what you get. Fast and crazy, and in 6 boosters pulled 2 rares - not shabby, promptly traded for the cards we need to finish the previous wave.
We also took a trip to the local GW, played with contrast paints.
They're... fine. Very like working with VJ glaze. Another tool, nothing more. The kids liked the quick results, I was less impressed, but can see the potential use. Most impressive was the Iyanden yellow for a fast, kid friendly nmm gold. The store manager is a good egg and even he agreed that for the boys doing raven guard black prime with dawnstone was still a better route.
He also, when pressed, reckoned the new primaris Infiltrators would be out as a box set in September. Good titbit.

Tomorrow's goal, then, is the rest of the Lava Louts.
Next question: do I leave them at that, or (a) go super silver on the armour (Theo's idea) (b) take the crystals to obsidian (Briancj's idea) (c) both ?

If I really have time, I'll do some Gaslands as well.
Till then
Graven

Syro_ wrote:
I really ike that dread you made Graven, I'm glad you went back to working on it

Yeah. Ten year long WIP lol.

There's always so much we want to do in this hobby, and so many interesting things to grab our attention. It's easy to have a 10 year WIP, as long as you've been in the hobby for 10 years. I'm sure I will too, once I've been in the hobby for 10 years.

 Syro_ wrote:

Syro_ wrote:
I really ike that dread you made Graven, I'm glad you went back to working on it

Yeah. Ten year long WIP lol.

There's always so much we want to do in this hobby, and so many interesting things to grab our attention. It's easy to have a 10 year WIP, as long as you've been in the hobby for 10 years. I'm sure I will too, once I've been in the hobby for 10 years.

Lol try 30, albeit with a big break in the middle. And thanks amigo!


Had a great game of ultimate with the kids

This is our first league game of the summer. The youngest won it decisively turn 3
Granted he got advice from me and his big brother, but still. Good times indeed


Started yet another team, Judwan (Greys)

The Area 51 Raiders


But I'm a bit further along with the Lava Louts:

Maybe some yellow again in the recesses. Nearly there though.

And with only 5 days to do it, started something for the current Gaslands contest:

Armoured Pursuit mode!

Secret weapon bits, 28mm steam punk cogs, and dice Mechanic Games resin weapons.

And, primed!

Now that feels like an armoured Batmobile
Now, Paint! On we go...
Graven

Good but busy couple of days. Parents a-visiting, then older boy off to camp, and took younger to an online gaming event. Played a bit of Pokémon with the wee fella too.

KM have got my attention again with (1) Chamber of Secrets and (2) DCU 2.0
Narrative campaigns/scenarios are exactly what HP should work off. Trying to make it a miniature game on a board was a terrible error. DCU has been a long time coming, and it's still my favourite game they've produced - early impressions are it's tidier and a bit more... Super: for example, falling is really not an issue for supers any more, which on one level may seem silly, but the game is supposed to be comic book cinematic, not bat-gritty, and the game often devolved into a shoving match. Looks like there's no minimum range anymore either, so you can now satisfyingly eye-blast people in the face (which is actually, in v1, one of the reasons superman always felt a bit underpowered). Hopefully it's generally better, but I've got a review copy en route.

Still, some p&m. Lava Louts redone with more orange and yellow, and obsidian eye for the captain:

I'm not loving the eye, but not hating it, and it distinguishes him further from the rest of the team this also means all my built teams are painted the sky will surely fall on our heads
And progress on the Batmobile:


Next, grunge and grime.

And I had a proper look at the Hellboy game. Here's my thoughts:

It's a big, beautiful beast of a game. It's covered in all-new art from Mike Mignola himself, and filled with models that even Guillermo del Toro has tweeted his delight over.

The quick start guide is neat, well-written and to the point - exactly what we've come to expect from Mantic. The rulebook is likewise clear, well-organised with a quick reference on the back. Mantic has this absolutely down, and a lot of companies need to learn from this.


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 (£20, well worth it) from dead nazi clues, to surprisingly cute frog swarms and infernal fires. The mantic dungeon terrain also interacts with the game, though I'll be using my furniture I made for mansions of madness

It's a deceptively simple game. 3 actions per agent per turn, using simple cubes as reference. 3 dice on the roll, with different coloured standard dice: red, orange, yellow, in descending order - there are only blanks and 1s on a yellow, but only 1 blank on a red, for example. These represent a scale of skill level (so Abe is Red on Range but Yellow on defence to represent his skill at shooting/throwing, but weak if he gets hit), and modifiers can upgrade or downgrade your dice. You can spend an extra action to upgrade a dice, with red going up to black (black dice are the best, no blanks and multiple successes). Added into this mix is also a blue dice which has for example a reroll, extra successes and a critical fail result amongst its facings. It's all very intuitive and ridiculously quick to learn. Add to that the fact that actions don't need to be taken consecutively allows for some interesting planning decisions: "Right, you punch the frog monster, and if you kill it, open the door, if not I'll stab it with my harpoon."
"Ok. Right hook of Doom or regular punch?*
The core game gives you 3 big villains - really big, in the case of 2: the frog monster, Rasputin and the tentacles. Sculpts are again generally very good though there's a bit of cleanup needed on the tentacular spectacular. The Rasputin sculpt is particularly strong, very detailed and captures the iconic Hellboy villain perfectly.

Eventually, for better or worse, you get to the final Confrontation with the boss. Hopefully you've found enough clues to give you the edge, and the Doom track is not so far advanced that you've got an über boss to take down!

Playing through the intro scenario again with my kids, and using Liz (who, along with Johann Kraus, comes in the base game), it felt a little more fraught even knowing what was coming - mark of a great game that it has such good replay factor - whilst her fire is terrifying, it's more difficult to power up and she's generally more fragile. Having a clear idea of how Hellboy (melee) and Abe (range/sneak) work meant they were more readily in about the plague of frogmen, whereas Liz (as specialist/investigator) got perilously close to death, but in the end she managed to make good with barbequed frog to win the day.

Damn(ed) fine game. This is hands-down the best high-end boardgame I've played in a long while. It captures the feel of the comics visually and in the narrative created; tentatively, I'd say it's Mantic's best game yet (and I'm obsessed with Dreadball, so that's saying a lot). Totally accessible, massively replayable, and a decent price - £75 - for a big box of Doom.


So there you have it.
With the eldest away this week, hopefully some gamey goodness with the younger boy. I suspect we'll be revisiting DCU...
Later
Graven

Batmobile is coming on nicely, the blueish highlight really works!

The Batmobile is looking great!

aku-chan wrote:The Batmobile is looking great!

Slinky wrote:Batmobile is coming on nicely, the blueish highlight really works!

Many thanks chaps! I'm rather pleased with it:





I really enjoyed doing this. Starting to feel Gaslands again let's prime some stuff:

And whilst I'm there, I'll get some paint on some more giants, spiders, giant spiders, supers, bane crew, potter minis...

Sorry that's a bit blurry. I got excited

I also based a bunch of potter figs for priming tomorrow. Essentially I'm just adding some of my regular urban base rubble to the tiled floor for battle-damaged Hogwarts flooring. Pretty happy with it.
So yeah, busy
Graven

Batmobile turned out quite well, or is it rather well? I understand you Britons use the terms quite and rather differently that we do. Whichever implies very good instead of meh is the one I mean. Chicks will certainly dig that car.

Red Harvest wrote:Batmobile turned out quite well, or is it rather well? I understand you Britons use the terms quite and rather differently that we do. Whichever implies very good instead of meh is the one I mean. Chicks will certainly dig that car.

Rather well. But only cos I'm posh
Very productive yesterday, the youngling had a friend over for the afternoon.
Another day, another dent.

In fact another bat.

So this is an Eaglemoss Batmobile repainted. It's all of 2mm different to the KM one, which I've yet to build, and is getting done in urban camo for Bane.
(@Briancj, haven't forgotten about your request for a scale shot, working on it).
Again, just enjoying random whims.

Speaking of whims, decided to do some Potter:

D... D... Dementor!


Acromantula swarms. I reckon that counts as one fig?

And the Death Eaters from the starter set.

As parent, I have to play the bad guys.

I really like the starter set death eater figs. Pity they're mostly rubbish in game.

The female Death Eaters are particularly nice.

She's my favourite. And she IS good in game.

I primed them black, and the students white. In retrospect, given how much black there is on a student with their capes and trousers, maybe should've just gone black anyway


And finally, couple of giants for Dreadball:

Not a day for arachnophobes...

Opportunity to work on my lens technique

And a boss mutant from Deadzone, that's getting his first outing at Gencon (not my one, just generally!) for Dreadball. Just done with washes. Rather delighted that the event organiser asked me to write the in-game fluff for this

No one knows what would bring such an insidious creature to the neodurium. For crowds, there is the chance to see something only rumoured at in the darkest whispers told by siblings to terrify one another on both sides of the war. For Digby, the quest for new, bigger, even more Ultimate thrills is enough to make them overlook the insanity of letting such a monstrosity run riot. And for beast itself? Who can fathom what machinations lurks behind its pitiless gaze.

Anyway, 8 more from the heap.

I also blocked in all the flesh on the primed students.
Won't get anything done today, anniversary. Well, actually, yesterday was our anniversary, but the boss is off today. If I want to make it to next year, think I'll have a day off hobby
Till then,
Graven

All looking great, but the Mantic guy didn’t get the memo about yesterday being paint like a goth day

 Theophony wrote:
All looking great, but the Mantic guy didn’t get the memo about yesterday being paint like a goth day

I'll make up for it with this:

Started a slime dragster. What, I was letting the wife have a lie in ?!

Oh, I know you've forgotten about me. With your fancy Turkish holidays and your gaslands and your dreadball.

That slime ball has twin pig stickers on the front, with how hazardously they drive I see him soon pole vaulting across the track .

Great work all round, Graven.

Liking that up-armoured batmobile.

Briancj wrote:Oh, I know you've forgotten about me. With your fancy Turkish holidays and your gaslands and your dreadball.

It's tragic, truly it is.

Theophony wrote:That slime ball has twin pig stickers on the front, with how hazardously they drive I see him soon pole vaulting across the track .

Yeah but a gear 6 ram from the second row first round? Gotta be done

Dr H wrote:Great work all round, Graven.

Liking that up-armoured batmobile.

Ta mucker.

Next?
Well, today was quieter, at least geekily. Too bloody hot. Played Starlink for a bit with the kid (essentially, No Man's Skylanders), went to the park, barbequed a bunch of meat, that sorta thing.
I did reorganise a bunch of boxes, resigned to the fact that I need a second a Dreadball box. Took a better pic of my crystallans.

Still, fun with MVPs! Buzzcut, now there's a fella who's used medicinal enhancements:

Bit shiny. Needs a dullcoat.


Enjoyed doing the face. I left the mold line on his lip and nose as scar tissue and highlighted it, pretty happy with it.

Started my Abejorros, or are they Avispas?

Yup, Bumblebee-themed team, Idris (speed cult), to go with my Vespas. Cars with angry bug faces. Need some more weaponry.

Also, broke out my DC car pool.


DCU mini game 2nd ed is coming, so me and the wee fella are going to have a throw down tomorrow. He's going Black Adam, Lobo, Deathstroke and Ravager. Think I'll use the Big Boy Scout, as he's overcosted and generally under powered, but still a potent threat. So maybe a classic JL Trinty or something. Red, Black and Blue DCU2 has genuinely got me interested in KM minis again. Who knew?
Till then
Graven

Right, as expected, the Batmobile is off, but the rest of the cars appear to be "good enough".

Thank you!

--Brian

Well, to be fair, it looks pretty much in scale with the Tumbler, which IS game scale

Buzz cut is the Morg’N’Thorg of Dreadball, big and too ugly to not take.

The fleet of vehicles is massive

Nice moody look for the Death Eaters. LOVE the robo-spider. Big Plague is also cool.

Theophony wrote:Buzz cut is the Morg’N’Thorg of Dreadball, big and too ugly to not take.

The fleet of vehicles is massive

Very true. He's one of the iconic game characters, and he is preposterously good. Thanks for admiring the size of my... fleet.

youwashock wrote:Nice moody look for the Death Eaters. LOVE the robo-spider. Big Plague is also cool.

Cheers. Yeah, robo-spider was fun, I'm liking doing the giants generally rather a lot. 1 left to build, 5 to paint.

Made another Med-Bot, out of a spare Striker-bot:

The M-800 ! With patented anti-grav pick up, your prize player won't even feel a thing!
Perils of League Play - when the other kid decides to buy a med-bot for his team also

Continued Yellowing stuff for the Avispas:

Need to decide exactly where the black is going on each.

Had a great game of DCU with the younger lad:


A few pics from DCU Vs my smaller boy. 45 PL, Black Adam, Lobo, ravager and Deathstroke Vs batman, Superman, kid flash and wonder woman.
Scenario: Seize The Knight! Villains had to capture batman, heroes defend. Secondary objective - find and rescue/capture beast boy, who was hiding as a chicken


Great game, the villains eventually took down the bat but there was a lot of damage on both sides, Kid Flash knocked out by Lobo in one turn but recovered enough to rescue Chicken Boy. Superman trinity hopefully gets a fix in DCU2 as his attacks are totally overcosted. The loss of minimum range will, I think, really help the feel of the game. More stoked for 2nd edition, and actually feel like revisiting KM DC models again, shock horror.

Got a bunch of KM objectives and traps from Dreadball Xtreme, so we can do (yet) another variant of play. Pics to follow, they'll be pretty quick and dirty though. We also updated our Ultimate League info, and am busy tweaking/writing rules (again, I seem to have been drafted by the team to help out).

I got Gaslands Refuelled to review, and it's a thing of great beauty, but that has limited my WIP time (along with, like, family). Refuelled is NOT a second edition: it's a tidier, clearer rulebook, but does not supplant the original Gaslands.
What's immediately obvious is that this edition has much, much better layout, collates all the TX stuff, adds rules for jumps and wasteland games, and expands some stuff further - in other words, new sponsors! Verney is about mashed-up vehicles and dropped weapons, Maxxxine about pulling off crazy spins and slides, Inferno set fire to everything including themselves, Beverley the Devil is a team of ghost riders, and the Bootleggers are literal trailer-trash. It's all rather good.

Coming up? DC, maybe, and Potter, perhaps.
Till then
Graven

DCU board is stunning, must be great for your boy to be able to play on terrain like that - So immersive!

Slinky wrote:DCU board is stunning, must be great for your boy to be able to play on terrain like that - So immersive!

Many thanks indeed. Yeah the kids really like it, though I need some more variety in my urban setup, I think, as I'm gearing up for DCU2, as well as working on stuff (including heroes and villains) for my own super ruleset #spoileralert. Need to paint 3 models for that...

Had game two of our ultimate league, this time on Azure IX - rainforest rules! This lead to a treeshark attack, various power outages and a lightning strike brutally injuring the Kalyshi star striker (there's a joke there) but a landslide win to them meant they weren't too upset about it.

I'm gearing up for further down the line, so got the obstacles, large and small, done:

The 8 small ones have removable lids: 6 are trapped -

Call it... 3 models?

But not much hobby. Fits and starts. Today errands, swimming with the kids and other hobby: bottling 5 gallons of strong English ale that's been brewing away in the garage. Hard life eh?
However, kids are away at grandparents in the second half of the week so I'm aiming to do some serious hobby. No doubt the wife will make do stuff, however
Ta-ta,
Graven

 inmygravenimage wrote:
though I need some more variety in my urban setup

If only.. oh, nevermind.

 Briancj wrote:

 inmygravenimage wrote:
though I need some more variety in my urban setup

If only.. oh, nevermind.

Thursday, my friend. Thursday we build Gotham, for Bane to destroy.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
A little bit of other stuff, that I forgot to post yesterday.
I got these through the post: the next wave of Rustables:

Available in resin, rustable or rusted from kitbashbox. Very nice, like the alternate box ends.
I'm looking forward to doing some experiments of my own with the powder too.

And I've been working on my Warden team:

3 of the base models came from Cam (L-R, 1, 2&4), and I'm gradually adding layers of chipped white isn't. The one on the left end needs a big frickin' gun and a ram still - I think it'll be the new, jagged one from Secret Weapon. Might need to give it an engine blower too. Planned loadouts:
1) as yet unarmed with minigun, ram and exploding ram
2) rockets, exploding "ram" (the skull, it go boom)
3) hmg, ram
4) hmg, exploding "ram"
I think the one without a gun still get it roof mounted.
Anyway, a little more progress.
Graven

Reckon I figured it out:

That spiked ram you made is cool looking, I agree that you figured it out

Would I be showing my age if I made a Dark Future reference?

That one with the gun on top really gets my nostalgic juices flowing.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, check this story out, I remember it from an ancient copy of Warlock magazine:

https://www.seanet.com/~owenmp/cuckoo/index.html

Syro_ wrote:That spiked ram you made is cool looking, I agree that you figured it out

Thanks! It's from Secret Weapon/Industrial Mechanica.

Slinky wrote:Would I be showing my age if I made a Dark Future reference?

That one with the gun on top really gets my nostalgic juices flowing.

Cheers, that was absolutely the vibe I was going for

Slinky wrote:
Also, check this story out, I remember it from an ancient copy of Warlock magazine:

https://www.seanet.com/~owenmp/cuckoo/index.html

that's epic. I'm a big fan of the author, Garth Nix - I have in fact literally just picked up his ABHORSEN CHRONICLES off my son's bedroom floor not 5 mins ago - and I knew he'd dabbled in post-apoc (SHADE'S CHILDREN is a cracking read, masterful double-twist), but never come across this before, so many thanks

Today has been about dealing with the unbuilt backlog (whilst watching Umbrella Academy) starting with Dark Knight Rises:

Plus the 80th Anniversary model (the Batman with all the bats). If you're VERY observant you might spot two guys are the same...

Yup, no Axe thug body, two of pistol thug. I've carved off the snazzy neckerchief, gouged a scar down through his right eye, and am going to turn him into one of the two Bane Bat-box exclusive thugs, as I'm damned if I'm giving KM any more money. Hence, also, the teddy bear. Except, of course, I've already DONE a teddy bear. Sigh...

Notably, the Tumbler is absent...

Bit rough. Bit gappy. Oh, and missing the upper wing section ffs KM, get a grip. Honestly, an eaglemoss one is just easier.

Did some more Potter miniatures as well.

This way, when I find something else missing, I can complain to KM in one go... :flame:

Finished up my Warden Crew for Gaslands:



So August started (bloody hell, August already...) with 4 more done. Not bad.
Tomorrow? Depends what the wife make me do. Considering I also did some gardening and went for a bike ride today, I think I'm doing ok

Graven


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oops.

Forgot about these
Skin inspired by Dr H

Keeeeerist, that Batmobile/Tumbler looks AWFUL.

--B.