Less Than a Day to Go...

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Dirtside T-Minus Two Days

Something BIG is brewing, check back June 1st for details!

Guns, Left!

"Remember what the general said; we're the cavalry. It would be bad form to arrive in advance of schedule. In the nick of time would do nicely." -JOE Vandeleur

I finished this guy up along with yesterday's Shermans. This is kind of a miniatures first for me actually in that I have never, until now, painted a figure in the likeness of a an actual person. I've painted nameless historical-era figs before, but this is JOE V. Kinda neat.


Remember too, this is in 15mm scale so he's actually a pretty tiny, little guy. This Humber Scout Car is about as long as a Lego fig is tall, minus the head. The fig is pretty small, but I still had to get some details in there or it just wouldn't be JOE, namely the mustache and the green scarf. I meant to go in and try to do a Guards patch on his sleeve but frankly, I forgot to do it, heh. He's got at least one bridging sign decal to go, and maybe a '53' regiment decal too.

The Unflappable Guards Armoured

Here I've got my first thousand points of FoW done and in the bag! Using the Hell's Highway sourcebook, these chaps are the first three squads of my Guards Armoured Squadron. I've also got a bonus warrior model in there too, but more on him later.


These three squads represent the three compulsory choices every Guards Armoured Squadron must take; a Company HQ and two Armoured Platoons. From the inception of what I wanted my Guards Armoured to look like, and after painstakingly going over the cost of which models to fill out how many points with Andy, I knew I'd field fully 'loaded' platoons.


I'd like to add a Sherman ARV to my Company HQ at one point, but that can wait for now. Also, I couldn't find anywhere in the historical record where a single Armoured Platoon fielded two Firefly VC's. Although you're allowed to field two of these per Armoured Platoon in the Hell's Highway lists, I opted instead for a single Firefly VC and three Sherman V's.


The Company HQ


Closeups of the Squadron Commander (right) and 2iC (left)


No. 1 Troop, Armoured Platoon

The one lament I've got was I didn't realize that the 'Guards Armoured' decal sheet I ordered only contained the Guards emblem, and nothing else. So I've got to get some more decal sheets, I need the regiment number icons, and I also need the geometric squadron symbols and the corresponding troop numbers. I'm also going to include decals for bridging signs, because well, that's just cool. Other than that I may cool it with the decals, I have a lot more tanks to do up. Although, I must say, some War Department tank numbers would be nice.


No.2 Troop, Armoured Platoon

Yes, this second platoon looks exactly like the one above it. Once I get the aforementioned turret markings on them though I'll at least be able to tell them apart. Another thing I did since photographing them was hit the decals with a little Devlan Mud just to tone them down a bit since they were looking pretty reflective here in the photos.

I know all the tanks look awfully clean too, but I'm shying away from doing any weathering until I get the last of all those fiddly decals in place. All in all, I can't complain with the results and admittedly, these were a blast to paint up, mainly because they're so different than anything else I've done. With the compulsory choices out of the way, I've now got a little wiggle room to indulge myself and go with some other choices off my army list.

I may crank out the last two of my Armoured Platoons since I'm kind of on a roll as is instead of deviating. Besides, the remaining two of my Armoured Platoons will only end up being eight total Shermans instead of the twelve I just knocked out here.

Centaur Princess Chronicles: Conclusion

The Centaur Princess Chronicles

"There was a princess who lived in the forest. She was a centaur; half horse and half human. She wore her long, brown hair in thick braids and she had sparkling green eyes. She and her tribe were respectful of nature. Today was a special day because it was her birthday."

"It was the centaur princess' 16th birthday, which was special in her tribe. This meant that she was old enough to be considered a responsible adult. To prove this, she had to do a special quest. She got to pick what her quest would be."

"The centaur princess went to the oldest of the tribe, the wise woman. The wise woman was the keeper of the stories and she had many books in her hut. The two stayed up long in the night, reading about these legends by candlelight."

"There was a tale of old that spoke about an ice crown that belonged to a centaur queen. It was a very magical crown and all the best wizards helped to make it. There was an ogre; a large, terrible ogre warlock who was jealous and wanted the crown for himself."

"In a battle only remembered in ancient books, the ogre warlock attacked the centaurs. He had many monsters to help him. He stole the ice crown and fled to his fortress in the mountains."

"The centaur princess decided her quest would be to find the ogre warlock and take the ice crown back. It would be a hard quest and many thought it would be too difficult for her to do. But she had courage, and she made up her mind!"

"It was still winter but the centaur princess did not want to wait until spring to go on her quest. She would leave this week, but first she had to get supplies and say 'goodbye' to her family. It was a dangerous journey and she might not make it back."

"The mom and dad of the centaur princess were because their baby had grown up so fast. They were also very proud of her because she had grown up to be an honorable and caring young woman. They had a special feast the night before the princess was to leave on her journey."

"During the feast the dad of the centaur princess gave her his old bow made of white wood and it had green leaves painted all over it. He told her it would always aim true as long as her heart was true. It was her bow now."

"The mom of the centaur princess gave her a special necklace during the feast. It was called the Heart of the Forest and was a large, green gem the color of the princess' eyes. It glowed a magical green, and with it she could talk to the animals of the forest."

"The rest of the night was spent in celebration and feasting. Centaurs danced late into the night under a bright, full moon. The centaur princess was told she could take, and only one friend to help her on her quest. She thought long and hard about this."

"The centaur princess chose to take one ally with her to get the crown back. She chose her best friend she had known since they were both very young. This friend wasn't a centaur, but a sprite. This sprite was a special kind of wizard called a song spinner."

"The two stopped for lunch and the snow was getting thicker. Instead of going further, they decided to just make camp. They didn't know eyes were watching them from the snowy shadows. By this time there were more however, lots more!"

"The next morning the two awoke. It was cold, and a fresh layer of snow covered the forest. The Centaur Princess and her Sprite ally took one look back at the forest the called home. After that they left on what would be their greatest adventure."

The Dice-Personality Quiz

You are a d20: You are a ruthless warrior. Thinking is for idiots and nerds. Doing things is what gets things done. You are the type who stabs now, and then asks questions later. Much later. And it usually involves a priest. For you, the best defense is a good offense, and the best offense usually involves burning the whole place to the ground -- at least twice. You are a whirlwind of destruction, composed of rash decisions and reckless actions. Put briefly, you are a danger to yourself and others. Good thing nobody ever listens to you. Take the quiz at dicepool.com

Breaking Bad Gets a New Home

AMC's Breaking Bad is pretty much my favorite television show on the air right now. I hardly watch any television to be honest, but I make sure to catch this one every time it's on. This spoof I ran across by accident was so funny I had to share here. If you're a fan of Breaking Bad, you'll really get the humor, but if not, you'll still find it pretty darn funny. Enjoy.

No More Rockin' For You

One week ago today, rock lost a founding father

"Dio", by Tenacious D

Dio has rocked for a long, long time,
Now it's time for him to pass the torch.
He has songs of wildebeests and angels,
He has soared on the wings of a demon.

It's time to pass the torch,
You're too old to rock, no more rockin' for you.
We're takin' you to a home,
But we will sing a song about you.

And we will make sure that you're very well taken care of.
You'll tell us secrets that you've learned. Raow!
Your sauce will mix with ours,
And we'll make a good goulash baby.
Dio, time to go!
You must give your cape and scepter to me.
And a smaller one for KG.
Go! Go! Dio! Dio!

Garden Update w/ Bonus Video

The new bed, not looking as barren as last we saw it...


The big stuff here was already fully grown. They were transplanted from a bucket full of mud, and admittedly I did a pretty sloppy transplant job, but they seem to still be alive. So with those still alive, I've got both Sage and Thyme. To the left of the herbs you'll see two more plants, unfortunately I don't know what they are! My neighbors are from India, and they know I love spicy foods, so they gave me these saying only, "They're very spicy peppers."


The left of the new box has got tons of Cucumbers poking through quite nicely. These all came from seeds and I'm happy with what they've done so far, I'll have to thin them out in the next couple of weeks. The other two plants are both my almost-budding Habañeros.


My peppers are somewhat under-performing. The three up front are Green Peppers, and I don't know, they could go either way. The two in the back are equally lackluster Red Peppers. Again, looking kind of puny. In the middle was supposed to be a thick row of carrots, but as you can see, they're doing nothing whatsoever. I'm pretty sure the carrots are duds.


Well I was most excited about my super-heirloom, mega-heritage Jalapeño Peppers. One is already dead, but it looked like my dog stepped on it. The three survivors though are above the ground now, but they haven't really taken off to do their thing yet.


My Basil has done great, shown here in both corners. They've probably tripled in height since I planted them not too long ago. The pale (more puny) plants in the front left are a couple of more Red Peppers. Again, they're alive, but not taking off like I had hoped for.


Here we've got the Beefsteak tomatoes. I shouldn't complain, but they're not quite as bushy as I thought. They're looking good, they smell great, but I don't know, they're kind of worrying me with they're weak saucedness. Beefsteak 'maters are obviously pegged for slicing.


My Roma Tomatoes are doing much better though. They're leafy, bushy, getting good height on them, and smell great when you 'nose them', something I do often. Roma tomatoes are a lot less juicy and much more firm, so I've got these guys pegged for salsa making.


I really couldn't see doing a garden without growing some Cayenne Peppers. These things are great; they have great taste, good spice, and are very versatile in the kitchen.


Now these Hot Banana Peppers are the MVP of the garden by far. Look at the pic, look at it! These were planted just twenty days ago and they're bearing fruit that it just about ready to be picked already! In fact, the video below is me doing that very thing, enjoy!

Flotsam and Jetsam: Pig Wars Batrep

The coast is not so lovely this time of year...

Last Friday saw another "big ole" game of Pig Wars. This time, I am proud to say, I showed up with two complete warbands totaling 39 models altogether. I really had to shoehorn one of those warbands in points-wise to make it fit, so most of the figs were militia quality. We had five total players, two represented Northern Vikings (the Dubh Linn'ers), two represented rival Southern Vikings (the Wexfordians), and the last group represented the shipwrecked survivors from the Church and the band Irishmen sent out to rescue said survivors.


Tom's Wexford Vikings arrive and head straight to the Irish rescuers


Bob's Wexford Vikings spy the makeshift shore camp and set phasers to pillage


On the opposite side of the table were mine and Ken's two warbands, the Northern Vikings. We came in together along the shoreline and split up after that. There wasn't really a plan, just go whack the other guys in the head and take their stuff, pretty standard.

As you can see from these pics, the table really makes the game. I love the touch of all the broken up timbers washed upon the shoreline. Having all painted armies kind of goes without saying too, but it's a standing 'rule' (for lack of a better word) around these parts anyway. Also, as is my usual M.O., I get the luxury of posting cheap camera phone pics quickly and being completely fuzzy on any semblance of historical context or scenario details.


My Dubh Linn Vikings scavenge coastal wreckage looking for loot


The shipwrecked survivors erect a makeshift fortification


As the Vikings approach, the Monks close ranks


First contact with the survivors was made by my warband. Up top, by the makeshift rampart you can see the devastating charge of my Beserker, felling two defenders before they were able to react. This of course exhausted him, and he collapsed from fatigue the next turn.

Meanwhile, Bob's warband was closing in fast on the other side of the encampment. Had we been allies, it would have been a nice pincer strategy. As it was, he was just one more headache to worry about. There was no love lost between the rival bands, and while I had men engaged with the shipwrecked, he charged in as well, attacking both the embattled groups. It really all came down to morale checks (and subsequent rallying) as well as that all-important initiative draw. Had a couple of these gone differently in the last turn or two, my warband's dismal performance may have been able to be redeemed by the end of the game.


Our homemade saga cards add that extra little bit of flair to the game, and this time I made sure my warband had plenty of build points to pick up three of these. Every warband also got a bonus saga card in the beginning, so I was starting out with a whopping four cards. Looking at these cards you can get a good feel for the enhancements they bring to the table.

Swift of Foot: Allows one model to move as if they're encumberance rating was one level 'lighter'. Basically a mailed/shielded model could move as if they were mail only, etc. I gave this card to my single Berserker model who was mail only. So he was now moving as if he was unarmored, which was great, a whopping 12" per turn for the big guy.

Great Coat: This is basically an heirloom level mail hauberk. I immediately gave it to my warband's leader. Since the figure has a pronounced, ahem, codpiece, which I painted a bright, vivid gold, he didn't have an heirloom hauberk, but a vintage codpiece.

War Leader: You get to give your high hold card to anyone needing it within LOS, pretty good stuff. I never actually used this during the game, but had to give it to my leader model as well, if for no other reason than he was, duh, the warband leader after all.

Heimdall's Horn: This one affects the standard bearer of the warband, of which is a compulsory troop selection anyway. It always you an automatic rally of a routing unit, which given the nature of all our troops running away all game long, is very handy. Unfortunately, my standard bearer bit the dust pretty early in the game (my own mistake) and I never got to use this card. Ironically, I think I failed a morale test and routed because my standard died!

Overall I'm not going to say anything I haven't already; the game was fun, the terrain was beautiful, the scenario was inventive, and the company enjoyable. All in all, a Friday night well spent. There were legitimate digital cameras in attendance (with mini-tripods), so I suspect a proper batrep may show up on Repple Depple at one point.

With Great Power...

Incarnadine Press' With Great Power

I have been away from the computer for a while, so when I meant to type this up we only had one game under our utility belts. Now, about a week and a half later, we've played it twice. The first session was really just a test drive session between Andy, Chri3, and myself. We liked it, loved it actually, so this week we went with a second installment, this time adding my somewhat non-gamerish brother-in-law to the roster as well as tabletop regular Chrispy.


The Red Son (my character) and Chri3' Life Bolt

WGP is a storytelling superhero RPG that uses some very cool mechanics. First of all, the superheros have no stats. That's right...no stats! Your powers are defined by what they can do, and what level they can influence from personal scale all the way up to cosmic scale. Power equality doesn't really matter from a mechanics standpoint, how often did we see the Wasp and Thor side-by-side fighting the bad guys? It's the story that matters, not how many dice of damage you can deal out. Oh yeah, there's no dice in the game either.


Fire Bolt, Villain and Antagonist

Every hero has aspects of their character that fall under different category. Assets can be powers, origins, and/or identity. Motivation aspects include duty and conviction, and the last category, Relationships, can be family, romance, partner, or friend.

Your hero embodies however many of these aspects as you want, and can have any number of them. Spider-Man examples abound; he has a power asset (webslinging), he has a identity asset (secret identity, Peter Parker), he has a conviction motivation (fight crime), and he certainly has any number of relationship aspects (Mary Jane, Aunt May, Gwenn Stacy...)

You can only take six of these aspects with you into a game though, and here the game itself is called an issue. The six aspects you take with you can become imperiled throughout the course of the issue, and as they drop lower, your character actually becomes more powerful. It sounds a bit convoluted, but it works as you play along and is easy to grasp. There's a great review of the game over here on RPG.net that does a much better job describing the system and how the game works than I could ever hope to accomplish, here's thy link.


Combat is resolved through playing cards, and play goes back and forth between the two sides of the fight until one side yields to the other. You're always looking to play the high card, but the suit also matters. There will be times you may have to yield because you have no cards left in your hand, or...you could further imperil your character's aspects to gain bonus cards. When an aspect hits rock bottom it becomes devastated. When this happens, the fun really picks up and the bad guy now gets a hold of your devastated aspect, trying to corrupt it for good.

Again with the Spider-Man example: Spidey imperils his relationship with Aunt May to gain more cards in the fight with Venom. What happens though, he eventually devastates his Aunt May aspect and now Venom gets control of the aspect. If Venom can permanently change this aspect in some profound way (if Spidey can't get it back) Aunt May's changes are permanent. Maybe she ends up as a new symbiote, or maybe she ends up just plain dead.


Firestorm Prime defeats Life Bolt in combat

The game's success rests on the shoulders of every single player sitting around the table. If you've got a fun-loving group that's willing to be a little silly at times, can think on their feet, improvise with the best of them, and works well together, then this one is definitely for you. Since there are no power or level caps, the sky is the limit when it comes to the adventures you can have, and given the mechanics, really any genre is fair game.

We thoroughly enjoyed it, and where it may take a little extra work up front learning a very non-traditional ruleset, and coming up with a character concept and associated aspects, it plays fast and loose once the ball is rolling. One thing I did notice however is that it doesn't handle large groups of players very efficiently. It can handle them mechanically, but your time factor is going to increase greatly as you add more players. It seems two or three players may be the ideal number, but we still managed with four the other night.

I haven't plugged the Minions podcast lately, so here you go. In our latest episode we throw down with some actual play of WGP. It was fun, and I guess that will give you the best idea of what the game is like more than anything else. Enjoy!

Imaginary Lives Wants You Citizen!

There's a new blog in town, fresh out of the egg sac! Fellow Minion and gaming buddy, Flounder, has gone live with Imaginary Lives. Not a focused blog on one specific niche, Imaginary Lives will be a "record of [his] life in gaming".

The two pics here are off the new blog and goes to illustrate the scope he intends to cover. Knowing Flounder personally, I can vouch that you will see all manner of minis from all kinds of genres come across his work desk. Plus, he's big into a variety of RPG's as well, so I've got a hunch some of that will be showing up as well. So head over and check it out.

British Shermans Update

Over the weekend I got started on my Flames of War box of goodness. I had ordered some decals to go with my Irish Guards, but didn't realize they're only about a third of what I needed, so I need to hit the intarweb and find some more regimental symbols. Though I love my tank sculpts, I still want to stick a bunch more stowage and gear on them too.


Here they are, a dozen Sherman V's ready to roll. As you can see, up front leading the column is a tiny little JOE Vandeleur in his Humber scout car. I didn't get the official FoW Vandeleur, but made my own. A single tank commander and a pack of x4 Humbers was still cheaper. Putting these tanks together went fairly well but I still suffered some hiccups. First of all, about five tanks in I realized I had glued all of the treads on backwards! They're not labeled 'left' or 'right' on the inside of the piece so I had no idea. After looking at it though, something didn't seem right, after I switched them, everything was back on track, ahem.

Above I have 995 points worth of armour:
x1 Guards Armoured Command Squad (four Shermans)
x2 Guards Armoured Platoons (three Sherman, one Firefly each)
x1 JOE Vandeleur


The other annoyance were those freaking tank hatches for the cupola! As you can see in the pic here, in front of each pile o' parts were the hatches. You had to trim them out, cut them down, then get them glued into place. Of course this doesn't mention the cupolas that have commanders sticking out, ugh! In the end I managed to 'batten down the hatches' and still retain some of my sanity. All in all, these twelve tanks went together in an evening. I mostly used regular super glue, with stronger stuff (Gorilla Glue brand super glue) for the tracks themselves. Obviously I didn't glue down the turrets.

Not shown here is the work I've done since taking these pics. I've got the x12 tank chassis (what's plural for 'chassis') painted and done. I picked out tool handles and supply boxes in brown, exposed metal in gunmetal grey, and did a heavy overbrush of Russian Uniform green, the official FoW armour color over the rest of the model. I was all proud of myself until Andy pointed out the interior tread wheels are actually green in color, not the steel I had painted them, double ugh. I'll go back and fix them of course. Next up are the turrets.

Mayhem Over Malta!

Would you like to know more?

FoW: Russians vs. Germans, 1944

I have the luxury of putting of batrep pics well ahead of my comrades, mainly because A) I use a lower res camera phone on the fly, and B) I don't remember any of the scenario or historical details so I'm not bound to accurate reporting! Repple Depple's Brian will crank out a thorough report, plenty of details and great pics, so consider these teaser batreps.


German infantry halftracks advance across the thoroughfare into the woods


German tanks, some equipped with flame throwers advance into the village

We had a total of five players, two on the Russian side, and three on the German side. The scenario revolved around both sides taking and holding key objective markers on the battlefield. Each turn you got to draw a random poker chip to account for the number of objectives held, these poker chips had three different amounts of points they were worth. Each player picked their individual troops from a variety of army lists with a variety of points totals. At the end of the game, objective points were added up and some kind of formula was used to calculate the difference in army list points to make it balance out in the end.


My "big guns" sat on a lone hill, protecting their objective marker


The massive 12"x12" Katusha rocket template from off-board


Armored recon cars are chased out of the woods by Russian tanks


Just a lovely, little tabletop pic...


A bridge not so far...German tanks hold another objective marker


SP artillery commence shelling while the FO does his job

All in all, it was a fun game...again. Whenever the call to arms goes out for Flames of War, I know it's always going to be a good time, both visually, and from the point of view of well thought out and constructed scenario. This is mostly the reason I was inspired to the point of jumping in head first with my own contribution to the FoW group.