No Go Zone

Hi folks!

I recently came across this charming little boardgame called No Go Zone while researching a potential project idea. The rules were just under £4 ($6) on Wargame Vault so I figured what the heck, it's worth a look.

No Go Zone depicts the hijinks that ensue when the pubs close on a Friday night in pretty much any given town or city in the UK. One player plays as the side of Law (Police & Paramedics) and the other Chaos (vandals, "ladies of the night" and hooligans), and they both compete to fulfill their various conflicting victory conditions. The game can slowly escalate from a couple of coppers keeping a few vandals and roaming drunks in check to a full-on riot.

Selling points for me are
#1: miniatures - full starter set of 24 for £40, and they're full of character. In particular, the upcoming football hooligans are bang on
#2: no dice - players use a modified rock-paper-scissors mechanic called "throwing signs" to resolve actions, with bonuses for winning with certain "signs". It completely removes luck from the equation so it all comes down to the players

Having plenty of spare funds due to an impending birthday, I've placed an order for the"Friday Night" starter set of miniatures, rulebook (because I like having a proper printed copy) and a set of Riot Police. I'll give a full review of minis and gameplay when I've assembled, painted and played.

While I'm waiting, I'll be building the cardstock vehicles and board tiles which are free downloads from the site.

Quick warning though, this is most definitely not one for the youngsters. Recommended age by the publisher is 16+, and I quite agree with it. Still, it looks like a bit of slightly silly fun for adult gamers, so it's well worth a look if you're old enough.

Urban War: Viridians

Hi folks!

Today I'm oing to post up something I promised a while back but somehow got pushed aside, and that is the first of my Urban War collection: the Viridians.

The Viridians, commonly referred to as VAF (presumably Viridian Armed Forces but I haven't had that confirmed), are the military arm of a commercial empire. They have the financial backing to field very well-trained and highly-equipped troops - consequently, they protect that investment by specialising in fighting at range to minimise casualties.

I first picked up the Viridians just under a year ago at the Claymore wargames event in Edinburgh (this year's is just around the corner, 1st August). I picked up three Metropolis boxes giving me two squads of Marines and a squad of Snipers. Between various other wargames events and a few online orders I've fleshed them out considerably and can field the vast majority of their unit types.

First up, we have the basic Marines. Each Viridian strike-team must have at least four of these, using up at least 80 of the standard 300pt allowance - so it's wise to learn how to use 'em. Their Gauss Rifles provide good reasonably accurate short-mid range fire, and their combat blades go some way to helping them in close combat.




Next are two models I tend use as "Veteran" (i.e. higher CAL) Marines.



Here we have the Marine Sergeants. These guys (and girls) make for good, cheap leadership in a Viridian strike-team.



Now we move on to one of my favourites, the Sniper. Most Viridian forces tend to field at least one of these. They are very expensive, but are highly accurate and can take down even heavily armoured units with a bit of luck. They are great for reliably taking out enemy leaders or specialists that are causing problems.



The next unit, the Marine with a Heavy Gauss Rifle, is something I haven't really made much use of yet. They do have a bit more firepower han the standard Marine up close, and they're something I intend to try out more often.


Now we move on to the support weapons in the Viridian arsenal. The Heavy Machine Gun team is a common feature of Viridian armies. It is an affordable means of laying down a good amount of long ranged firepower, and adding more cheap loaders keeps it in the fight even longer.


Mortar Teams are another useful unit. being able to fire blindly, their area of effect shells mean that they should be able to at least hit something if they scatter. In my last couple of games they really made back their investment, and then some.


On to the more specialised stuff now. Here we have a Special Forces trooper, his Gauss Carbine making him a good short range fighter. These guys can act as spotters for Mortar Teams, improving their indirect fire accuracy, and can also be equipped with camouflage to conceal them from long ranged fire.


Another widely-used unit are the Shock Marines. A slight oddity in the Viridian forces, these guys are close combat specialists. Their Vibro-scythes cleave through armour like it was paper, and between their armour and Negatron Shields, they're pretty tough too.



Urban Interdicts are quite a tricky unit to use. They can drop in almost anywhere on the battlefield after the game begins, and are equipped with a pair of Gauss Pistols for close range firepower.

Up next is a Saurian Rider. They are essentially faster Marines with an extra wound and slightly more expensive. I haven't quite found a niche for them yet, but I suspect I will once I get one or two more to fully explore their uses.


With the release of the CLAU Team Actions supplement, heavy battlesuits entered the fray, and Viridians as usual have some nifty tricks. I have both of their suits, but the only one I've painted up is the Sabre. Which is basically a giant Shock Marine.


The other, the Tomahawk, is equipped with an upgunned Mortar.

A useful feature of the CLAU rules is the ability to upgrade it with an ejection system, allowing the pilot to bail out and continue the fight. The advantage of this is that the CLAU won't count as a casualty unless the pilot is also taken out. Here is the Viridian Land Pilot.


So that's my painted collection of Viridians. I still have the Tomahawk CLAU to do, as well as some basic Marines, a few Snipers, another Mortar Team, some Special Forces an a Bazooka Team. Future posts may eventually see them, but th next few will more likely show off the other factions I have.

Commission Work: Space Wolves Finished

Hi folks!

I first showed my work on these guys a few weeks ago. Quick recap: the client requested three Space Wolves character models: one in power armour, one in terminator armour and a Wulfen, and provided links to artwork to base the designs on. They were to be assembled, primed black and given snowy bases.

I received confirmation at the start of the week that they arrived safe and sound, so now I'll post the final pictures from my end. First up, the power armoured hero (banner missing from the picture - I still had some finishing touches to do):


Next, the terminator armoured hero:


And finally, the Wulfen:


More pictures available here.

The client is delighted with them, as am I. Especially because this was my first attempt at snow bases, which has been quite a learning experience. I used the profits from this commission to fill out my bits box for future projects.

If any of you would like to request commissions, full details are available here.

Something that's driving me nuts...

http://musicofb5.thegreatmachine.org/the_face_of_the_enemy-bar.zip

I know it's a long shot, but does anybody know who sings this? I kinda like it but I've exhausted my googling skills and found nothing, and now it's starting to bug me...

This Week's Pictures!

Hi folks!

As promised, some long overdue shots of what I've been up to lately.

I'll start by showing the colour scheme of my Tyranid army. I've decided on the colours used in Imperial Armour 4 - bone for the exoskeleton and either green or brownish red for the carapace. I simply spray white, dip in brown wood stain, then paint the carapace. Here's how it looks:


Now, in my last post I said I was using this on the "smaller" critters. And to clarify, I mean smaller than this:


Yep, a Barbed Heirodule. This poor beast has been sitting in a box for a year and a half, so I figured it was high time I get it painted up. That has taken the better part of last week, and I still have the arms to do.


Now, on to something considerably smaller. Many of the new scenarios I've written for Urban War require objectives and, of course, I couldn't just settle for the cut-out ones I designed. I had to go and make something a little more interesting:




Out of those, only the smallest counter is a scratchbuild. The next size up are teleport homers from the Terminator sprues, and the two largest ones are resin accessories I bought online - part of a set of three but the third picture didn't come out. :(

This Week's Activities

Hi folks!

First of all I'll apologize in advance for the lack of recent pictures... I've got a couple of things to finish off which I'll post soon.

This week I had a little rummage for a project to take my mind off things and found one of my boxes full of Tyranids. "Haven't looked at these critters in a while" I said to myself so I sat down to work on them for a bit and before I knew it, I had a horde of the beasties on my table. I assembled the last few gaunts that were on the sprues, sorted out a bunch of second hand stuff I'd bought a few months ago, magnetised two carnifexes, and just tonight I've done the same with a trio of warriors. I got some painting in as well, which I'll probably show pictures of tomorrow.

I'm dipping the vast majority of them to save time, and it gives them an appearance that I'm happy with. Only the really big stuff gets the full paint treatment, and that's what I've been doing this week. I'd like to unleash them in an Apocalypse game sometime this year since I've never used them at that level, and dipping the gribblies is the only way I'll ever get them done without going insane.

In other news, I finished Homeworld's campaign for the first time ever - I was mighty impressed. For the fellow fans out there, I came across a (legal) download of an extra "official" mission, which you can get here. It was cut from the final game, but it's quite fun, if a little unpolished compared to those that were kept. The download is basically a demo the first 4 original missions plus the extra one, doesn't require the original game so anyone who has a bit of free time should check it out.

Finally, I've also been working on a community project for Urban War, putting together a collection of extra scenarios for the game. The rulebook contains four basic scenarios, and we've created a further twelve in order to give players more choice in their games. The forum topic (the scenario pack is an attachment to the first post) can be found here.

Looking forward to next week, I'll be doing more work on Tyranids and the scenario pack most likely.

Disaster

Hi folks!

Feeling pretty bummed out right now as last week it has come to my attention that a large package I sent out to an ebay buyer a few weeks ago has gone missing, worth about £90. I've refunded him and will make a claim with the Post Office which should get me £40 compensation, but unless it eventually turns up I'm £50 down.

That's put a huge dent in my Babylon 5 project since I was planning to place a large order this month. I'm going to have to postpone it for a month and pray that the ships I want are still in stock by then.

All this has had a knock-on effect and I can't bring myself to even pick up a paintbrush at the moment. I did paint a few ships before the weekend though, so I'll probably post them up sometime, and I'm still "in the zone" for Homeworld stuff.

Anyway, I hope everyone else has had better luck than me this weekend!

Distractions...

Hi folks!

As of late it seems this blog is increasingly covering non-40k material, which pretty much reflects my hobby situation at the moment. I'm finding that 40k as a game isn't much fun any more, it just seems a bit shallow compared to other games that I've been playing. At the moment I'm actually looking to other rulesets to use my models with - I still like the background too much to give them up. Stargrunt II is looking like the primary candidate for a replacement.

Anyway, that's not really my main topic for posting, but it's something important that's going on. No, tonight's topic is, for the moment, not quite hobby related.

Over the past couple of days, I've found myself getting sucked back into Homeworld, an award-winning space RTS from about 10 years ago. It's pretty much space strategy at its finest - full 3d movement, dozens of ship classes (some of them are pretty awesome), great graphics for its time, beautiful soundtrack and an epic single-player campaign.

As with any of these brief obsessions of mine, between gameplay sessions I tend to hit google and see what turns up. Among the results were mods (such as the excellent Babylon 5 mod and I remember there being a BFG mod in the works for HW2), and background info and debates including a fascinating topic on working out ship sizes. But by far the most interesting to me was the discovery of paper models. Between this and another couple of sites, they seem to have pretty much everything covered. I've printed off the Kushan Assault Frigate and Carrier to try them out.

I'm toying with the idea of statting them up for Babylon 5: A Call To Arms and miniaturizing the paper plans. I've plenty of spare plasticard for the latter, but it will probably be more difficult balancing stats for a system I'm not fluent with yet - especially since it's not a traditional points-based game.

Speaking of Babylon 5, I've made about £150 from ebay sales (after fees), so I'll be ordering more ships soon. It was tough deciding what to put on my shopping list, but I'm aiming to get my Earth, Minbari, Narn and Centauri fleets up to campaign level so we can start playing games with more varied fleets. After the summer I'll round out the collection with the other races, and the ships I need for the special scenarios in the book.

Finally, with the decline in 40k-related material on my blog, I'm thinking about giving it a facelift. No solid ideas yet.

That's all for now, take care guys!

Commission Work

Hi folks!

As I said a couple of weeks back I'm taking commissions in order to earn a little extra money with the abundance of free time I have this summer. I had one client request three pieces, and with his permission I am showing what I've done so far.

My client asked for three characters for his Space Wolf army, based on artwork he had found on deviantART: specifically this, this and this. After a quick rummage around bits sites and ebay I felt that I could pull them off. He also requested that I give them snowy bases and prime them black before posting them out to him. I've never modelled Space Wolves before, nor have I done snowy bases, so I was looking forward to these new challenges. I decided that I would pin (not glue) the models to their bases so that they could be finished separately.

Here's where I'm at now.

First up is the power-armoured hero. For this I combined elements from the Blood Claws box (head, torso, banner, powerfist, backpack) with a couple of regular marine bits and a cloak from the Warriors of Chaos box. The ruin on his base is from the Cities of Death sprues. I've still to tidy him up a bit, but he's probably the closest to finished.






Next up is the terminator-armoured hero, by far my favourite of the three. Bits came from many sources including 40k Orks, WHFB Orcs, 40k Chaos and WHFB Empire, and obviously the FW Space Wolf Terminator conversion kit. In a slight deviation from the artwork, the client wished me to convert a chainaxe for him. I've still got to finish off the wolf pelt and the tusks on the skull, as well as make a scenic base.





Finally, the Wulfen. This one required the least work, with most of the conversion going into his victim. After seeing these pictures I've decided to alter the join so that the Wulfen will have a grip on the corpse's collar as well, in order to make it look like a more "natural" hold. Again, the base is still to be made.




My client is delighted with the pictures so far and hasn't requested any changes or bits that need re-doing, and if he's happy I'm happy. I'm aiming to finish these by the start of next week.

I'd love to hear what you guys think of them as well. And if any of you want to hire me to make a special centerpiece character or squad, this post here has all the details.

Urban Terrain

Hi folks!

It's been a very quiet week on the 40k front, since I've been working with the online community on some new Urban War scenarios, and then on modelling a few bits and pieces that they require.

So today I'll show something that can fit in both 40k and Urban War, which is some of the terrain I made recently. I went for pieces that are cheap, light, durable and yet look good on the table, and I think I managed.

First up is a pretty standard intact building, constructed entirely out of foamboard - even the base. That stuff is amazing for this sort of project. It's light, easy to work with, and durable enough for gaming.
I took my inspiration from some of the Helghast bulding concept art from Killzone 2.

(Urban War Viridians shown for scale)

Next up are my two ruined buildings, again constructed from foamboard. The rubble is simply cut-up sprues, passed through one of those old metal meat grinders. It's quite hard work to grind it all up but the results are fantastic. It's also a great workout! :D
I finished them off with a couple of ladders from the Cities of Death sprues. The one thing I see missing on many ruins is a way to get up to other floors so I made sure not to miss that out on mine.



Finally we have some chemical storage tanks. These were made from Pringles tubes, so if ever you need an excuse to eat lots of Pringles, then just say you're making terrain! I finished off the look with some pipes from the Urban War Bio-Toxin Plant terrain set. The sprues are packed with pipes, platforms, storage tanks and stuff so it's worth buying if you're ever making industrial terrain. I also added some pools of "stuff" by generously glooping some Army Painter Quickshade on the base with a brush.




I still have some supplies left so what I'm thinking of doing is making a few more ruined buildings, with multiple levels, rooms and such. Something a little more interesting than the corner with a bit of floor left that most tabletop ruins end up being.