Mik's Minis

Rooting out the Insurgents: More Combat Cards

2012-01-30T12:34:00.001-05:00

After their initial clash, medics of the Kilburn High Kings gave the bodies of the PDF a closer examination. An alien parasite was found attached at the base of the back of the neck of the dead troopers, firmly secured to the trooper's brain stem. Death of the trooper meant death to the parasite, but it was also determined than no amount of delicate surgery could remove a live parasite without killing the victim as well. The Kings fell back to their dropship, sent a transmission detailing the situation, and formed their next plan. Further into the settlement was a large concentration of life signs, including some peculiar signatures, xenos in nature. The signatures were on the move, and the Kings mounted up, with reinforcements this time. The next battle was upon them.

Hot on the heels of our last patrol clash with the Combat Cards system, we tore right into another game. In fact, the rules play so fast, it's feasible to get at least two games under your belt in a single evening. This second go-round we added more unit types for variety, as you can see above.

The Pig Iron robot, who acted as protocol command droid last game, was promoted to a Recon Unit position this time around. Recon Units are pretty beefy stats-wise and a single 'bot may not fully represent what a Recon Unit is, but in this case he's a highly-advanced piece of tech dropped behind enemy lines. Now of course tearing into this skinny 'bot is a massive dreadnought masquerading as a Behemoth Unit. Clearly the biggest, baddest (and most expensive) unit in the game.

Another new unit we introduced were a pair of Aerial Units, one for each side of the battle. It seemed last game that there were a lot of cards in our hands that saw no use at all because we didn't have units represented to use the unique card abilities.

Aerial Units don't stay on the table, but kind of do fly-by's when the right cards come up. Above you can see the Kings' Aerial Unit, a mohawk-sporting, jetpack equipped 'rocket jock'. Below is a unit of my PDF troopers, and although out in the open, I had them concealed and hidden, meaning they couldn't be targeted. Well the card played against them was an 'Aerial Spotting' situation, meaning they lost all of their concealment.

There was a great mini-drama playing out between my lone sniper (Heavy Weapons Unit) and Miller's lone power armored soldier (Mechanized Unit), and it was all fueled by the cards. All Miller wanting to do was close in melee and tear my guy to shreds, all I wanted to do was pick off the power armor at a safe distance with my rifle. Card after card saw one trooper or the other get the upper hand, but time and time again somebody's plan was thwarted. This little mini-battle went on for many turns.

Early on in the game my Aerial Unit, a giant floating alien eyeball of doom, was able to destroy the enemy Aerial Unit in a dogfight. After that, my alien eyeball ran roughshod all over the enemy, uncontested for the rest of the battle. He would swoop down and attack at will, blasting unit after unit into oblivion. Definitely the MVP of the battle and proof that the invading aliens did not like being messed with.

It also goes to show that there has to be some balance in the units on both sides or somebody is going to have a headache on their hands. Miller had one Aerial Unit (which went down early) and zero Aerial Defense Units. Without either of these, it made for a frustrating game in which all he could do was hope I didn't draw an 'Eliminate' combat result every time I dive bombed one of his units.

Two-man SAW team bears down on enemy infantry

The mercenaries' quick initiative coupled with a better understanding of understanding of what they were facing favored them greatly in the ensuing battle. They struck quickly into the heart of the settlement, scattering the alien-controlled PDF soldiers just briefly enough to gain a strong foothold in the coming firefight.

A bitter firefight between PDF troopers and a power armored unit ended up in close quarters fighting...where both sides managed to knock one another out of action. Out of action doesn't mean eliminated however, and the race was on to see which side recovered first and was able to get the 'Back in Action' card played on them.

The impressive, armored walker wasn't the only Behemoth Unit on the table. The alien host had parasitically infected a trio of huge Ogryn in addition to the regular PDF troopers. These massive brutes are the only ones strong enough to heft the large bore auto-shotguns, which they used to devastating effect.

Well, two games of Combat Cards down and I'm still digging them. I've said time and time again that it's a big sea of rules and minis out there, I don't see myself tied down to just one system, ever, but I do see these making more appearances. Why? Easy to use with concise, well-written rules. Forces are a cinch to set up and pick up battles take zero prep work and scenario fueled campaigns don't require too much effort. Diceless combat and lack of armor tables, saves, and the like is refreshingly simple, but nothing is taken away from minis combat at all.

I'm not saying the cards are for everyone, but for my style of play they are; narrative battles with an unpredictable fog of war element that play fast and loose, telling a good story in the end. Next time around we'll be using the full 36pt lists per side. I think with such a higher points total we'll be able to put a wide variety of units on the table too, hopefully doing away with some of the asymmetric rock/paper/scissors effect that popped up a bit. Enjoy!

The Grey: Top of the Food Chain?

2012-01-29T11:33:00.001-05:00

The Grey (2012)

It has been forever since I've been to a movie, over the summer in fact, but the missus and I made it this weekend. I jokingly said I would credit my sister-in-law for pulling babysitter duty and allowing us to go out, so thanks Corina!

Slim pickings in the movie choices however as we scrolled through them at dinner. Hmm, Underworld? Nah. Red Tails? Maybe, but it's been a while since I played Check Your Six! so probably not. Some George Clooney drama? Nope. Mission Impossible 3 with Tom Thumb? Never saw the first two, but I am a big fan of director Brad Bird. It was based on Liam Neeson's acting alone that put The Grey to the forefront. Well, that and an earlier screen time.

It was a good movie, but not what I expected. It is not an action-adventure romp with a happy ending. It's a dark, slow-paced, beautifully shot movie dealing with survival. Not just survival in the harsh elements, but survival on a human scale, pulling oneself through the worst thrown at you and still clawing to exist rather than succumbing to it.

The premise is a plane full of rough and tumble pipeline workers goes down in the Alaskan/Canadian wilderness. Amidst the wreckage a handful of survivors set out to find civilization. A trek made perilous by the elements, a trek made absolutely fatal by wolves. These are the skinny third generation zoo wolves you've seen, but the primal, alpha kings of the frozen tundra. Humans might have fire and sharp sticks, but home field advantage belongs to the wolves.

This was definitely a tense thriller. You had no idea what was going to happen next and moments of calm were abruptly shattered by brief, but insanely intense, violence. The main character, Neeson, wasn't a show stealer or really all that different from the other (albeit somewhat stereotyped) survivors. They were all in the same mess, and their fates all seemed equally sealed. The Grey wasn't what I was expecting, but I was pleased with what I got.

Patrol Clash: Combat Cards Test

2012-01-28T17:00:00.000-05:00

It was always a backwater outpost, but one with a TSU (Trans-space Union) presence nonetheless. Even with delays in subspace transmissions, ninety days without contact was far too long. With resources already spread too thin, an independent contractor, the Kilburn High Kings, were brought in to investigate and reestablish communications. It would be another two months before they dropped out of n-space at the edge of the solar system, then several weeks after that before entering the planet's orbit. Too much time...

I can't even think of the last time the minis hit the table in an actual battle here at Mik's Minis, too long really. Hot on the heels of the Combat Cards review, art-fiend Miller and I took to the felt. Being a test game the forces were pointed up at about half strength, and I kept the unit variety to a minimum. Above you've got the mercs, grouped into their respective units. Here's the breakdown:

x3 Infantry Units @ 2pts each
x1 Command Unit @ 2pts
x1 Heavy Weapon Unit @ 3pts
x1 Mechanized Unit @ 4pts
Total: 15pts (36pts is the norm)

As I said in the initial review, the units are kind of defined by what you're putting on the table. An Infantry Unit could be pretty much anything, for these guys it is a four man fireteam. My Command Unit is a pair of leader-type models, and the Heavy Weapon unit is a single fig wielding a large machine gun (actually a Deathlockdrum for those keeping score). Last is my Mechanized Unit, which could be anything from bikes, to an APC equipped unit, to power armor, I chose the latter.

My poor, neglected Pig Iron troopers who see so little combat...

x1 Command Unit @ 2pts
x2 Infantry Units @ 2pts each
x3 Heavy Weapons Units @ 3pts each
Total: 15pts

Above you see the same four-man fireteams acting as Infantry Units as well as a two-man Command Unit (this time a captain and his protocol droid). Although there's three Heavy Weapons Units, there's two different flavors. Two of them are two-man units, a SAW gunner and his loader. The third Heavy Weapon Unit is a solitary sniper (seen up front). Although the stats are the exact same, the feel is totally different and as the rules state, those differences only come out in the after action reports and off world bureaucratic inquiries.

Once in-system the Kings still couldn't raise the planet on the comms, it was nothing but static. After dropping in atmo, it was readily clear what had happened; the outpost had been bombed from orbit. Detectors still showed life signs on the surface, lots of them.

Since Miller was using the orange deck, he went with the models wearing orange berets. Game setup alternates unit placement with initiative by a random draw off each deck and corresponding card numbers. Your measurements are from the center of the unit to the center of the target.

Most recently our games of the western Piquet variant, PKowboys came to mind immediately. Waiting for your card to move a unit, waiting for that card to assault with a unit, looking for a card to shoot. But this was better as well, because the cards served two purposes; actions and situations. Actions are played on one unit per turn, situations however are the special powers that can be played anytime, even on your opponent's turn.

The real trick is picking which you want more. You might have a a card that has the excellent 'Opportunity Fire' (overwatch) Situation, but that might also be the only card in your hand with the 'Move Action'. Hang on to the card and wait to shoot the enemy when they move, or use it now to get that Heavy Weapon unit in firing position? This balance made for a very enjoyable game turn after turn. The cards pack even more info, but the last two facets, combat results and random drift however, are drawn randomly as needed.

In the above pic you've got Miller's power armored troopers (Mechanized Unit) close assaulting my two-man SAW team (Heavy Weapons Unit). The power armor outclassed them and got 'Shaken' as their combat result, since they also attacked my unit in the rear arc, their result was up one, being Mechanized their Firepower Rating was higher than my unit's Protection Rating pushing damage up one more netting two up on the combat result totaling an 'Eliminated' result even though 'Shaken' was originally drawn. Well, my guys out regardless, all I can hope for is some parting damage since close combat is simultaneous. I got a 'Fall Back' and no steps up for damage. They retreated a few steps, but my guys bled out.

I had an Infantry Unit kind of out in the open early on, my mistake. All it took was Miller's Heavy Weapon Unit to zero in on them and fire. Combat Results are random, and there weren't any steps up or down for modifiers, so whatever was drawn would be the result. Dead on, 'Eliminated' came off the deck and I lost the unit. Unluck of the draw!

The Kings hit dirtside fast and hard, trying to raise the PDF on local radio, still no answer. After making visual contact with a patrol they openly approached them, only to be fired upon! Something had gone wrong and the uniforms might be that of the PDF, whoever was wearing them was definitely the enemy. The power armor and SAW gunner of the Kings proved to turn the tide with the rest of the units performing their roles admirably. It was a total route with the mercs suffering very little fatalities. Something was certainly amiss, and further investigation was needed.

The game played fast and was certainly fun. I can see this ruleset being perfect or quick, pick-up games and no-frills set up. It would also shine in a loose campaign, map-based or otherwise, that could be played out over the course of day. The other facet which originally drew me to the game was that anything goes in the unit department, allowing you to use a wide range of whatever you've got on the shelf. The cards were fun to use and the fact that combat results were drawn off the same deck made it so streamlined and perfectly meshed into the overall mechanics.

The cards also represented a lot of fun challenges as to which cards you kept, do you discard, save them for reactions, or use them for actions? So many times I didn't want to use a card because it has a great action on it, but I needed that vital reaction! It made for an open game where the narrative unfolded as the game progressed. I think another go is certainly in order. Enjoy!

Tactical Assault: Combat Cards

2012-01-27T12:07:00.003-05:00

Saw a post and a blurb on one of my favorite blogs, Tiny Solitary Soldiers, about a game by the same name of the title of this post.

It sounded cool and Spacejacker has never led me astray, so I checked it out at the Tactical Assault Games website. I liked what I saw, in fact something about had me quite taken with it. I plucked down a mere eleven bucks, made some copies, and the rest is what you see here.

The rules, a solid QRS, and two decks of the Combat Cards

Why was I taken with these rules right off the bat? I mean really, there's tons and tons of rules out there, so why these? There was just an intangible quality about them. My curiosity was piqued when I saw solo scenarios and mechanics. Then I had to raise an eyebrow when I saw the game required zero dice. Genre ranges from WWII to modern to near-future, it's up to you and what you've got on hand, so far so good.

It helped that the rulebook itself is free, here's a direct link. Sure, you get what you pay for, but these rules are well laid out, compact, and efficient. They get the job done in a no-frills manner in a simple, to-the-point style that said to me that this game is one of those that will be easy to get the hang of it and get on the tabletop quickly enough without a high learning curve.

After reading the rules, the overall package struck me as the love-child between Piquet and Hordes of the Things; two games that I absolutely adore and could play all the time. In Piquet the fog of war is always in full effect and just because you may want your troops to do something at an opportune moment, it doesn't mean they will. You have to wait on the right cards to come your way, and that's where the dice-less beauty of Combat Cards comes into play as well.

Each side of the conflict utilizes a combat card deck turn in and turn out. Here's a breakdown of a sample card. Playing these cards on your unit is what makes them 'go', be it moving, shooting, close combat, engineering, and more. If you don't have a move card in your hand, then your troops aren't moving that turn.

Other card mechanics including interrupt effects too like over-watch fire. The dice-less part comes into play when "rolling" for damage. When a unit shoots another unit, the top card of your deck is flipped over and you apply the combat result on that card to the target. This is further modified by steps up or down the combat result track depending on things like cover, firepower, and the like.

There's a list of units in the rules, each for a certain point value, and descriptions of what that unit does. There's also examples of what the unit could be, key word being "could". And this is where Combat Cards strikes me as Hordes of the Things, the units themselves are abstract, so really you can use anything you have on hand...or paint up specific units to match, it's up to you.

Scale is up to you as well, either you're throwing down on a skirmish level (one figure is one unit) or on an army level (five tanks is a single unit). A mechanized unit is pretty much anything that is augmented in the movement department, you define it by what you put on the table. In the long run, personally, I think it would be fun to paint up some 15mm sci-fi specifically for use here, putting multiple figures on a base and throwing in some mechs for good measure.

I think I've gone on enough here about the game, hopefully you get the idea! We've got a test battle lined up this week between a couple of 28mm skirmish platoons, so I'll be posting that batrep soon enough. Maybe I'll get in one of those solo games too...

LEGO Thursday: NPC Adventuring Party

2012-01-26T18:16:00.002-05:00

Adventuring parties full of people's characters are well and good, but what about the NPC adventuring parties out there? Someone's gotta be neutral competition every now and then. You and your party of PC's can't always be the only tough-looking group of hombres in the tavern on that stormy night can you?

When dealing with NPC parties, they tend to lean on the side of two-dimensional. Above you have the stern and honor-bound warrior monk woman, the sneaky and deadly Elf rogue, and the quirky, absent-minded Gnome wizard.

Messiah Bold

2012-01-20T20:11:00.006-05:00

He'Brew Messiah Bold, yes, it's the "beer you've been waiting for". No, it's not kosher, I'm pretty sure it's all marketing. Puns aside, and not one to pass up a new beer, no matter its origin, soI tried this one out. Wow, I was very impressed! First of all, it's a dark porter for sure, look at the photo, it's just like a Guinness. Its got a thick head and strong caramel aroma right out of the pour. The taste is just as lovely, strong in the roasted grains department and with a smooth finish. This is a great beer and if you like full, dark beers, I would definitely give He'Brew a shot.

LEGO Thursday: Convention Gaming

2012-01-19T18:22:00.001-05:00

Here's a Historicon 2011 shot of some French-Indian War action using LEGO (of course). Thanks to Andy sending this to me a while back.

There's a Fire Beetle in my Narcotic!

2012-01-18T09:22:00.001-05:00

Well I'm happy to say that our official game of Legends of Anglerre, the fantasy FATE engine has officially kicked off and we have the first session under our belts. Unlike a lot of the mid-week roleplaying games we do from time to time, this one is not a limited run or a one-shot. For this FATE romp we've ambitiously made a go at an open-ended, ongoing campaign.

When I posted the write-up for the Bulwark a while back I was getting warmed up for it to be part of the overall atmosphere. One cool thing we did, prep-wise, for this campaign was use the world creation, standalone fractal RPG, Microscope, to hash out all of the background details. I liked doing it this way because the world creation by itself was a fun side adventure, and it always guarantees that all the players are on-board with the backdrop since they all had a hand in creating it.

Another item in the 'trying something different' department is that we're using the Obsidian Portal RPG wiki site to host all of our characters, legends, NPC's, items, and more. The name of the campaign is The Tainted World, and you can find it here. We're going with a magical-infused, alternate reality Earth where the ruins of the civilization we all know and love (and currently reside in) are all around. Rather than copy and paste the first adventure here, if you are interested in reading, you can check out the adventure log here.

A couple of other quick notes, since FATE does use some specialized dice, and instead of borrowing all the time, I did pick up my own set of these very cool Fudge dice from Q-Workshop. Also, as usual, the Minions of the Monster Master have recorded a lot of this material in actual play, and extremely explicit, podcast episodes. If you check them out, you've been warned!

That's it for now, I'll try to get some stuff posted about my character, items, and what-not soon. I think a blog is about the only socially acceptable place to talk about your characters, right?

Tres Dippos Facil

2012-01-17T09:53:00.001-05:00

Three easy dips! Lots of football on right now with the playoffs in full swing and all. So with all of that football comes lots of excuses to have lots of people over to watch said games, and lots of excuses to eat horribly unhealthy food. Mind you, you don't have to like sports to have an excuse to whip up some quick and easy dips however. Maybe it's a Stargate marathon, or just game night around the table. Whatever the case, try one of these next time.

Cheesy Chorizo Dip
Ingredients:

Chorizo (Mexican sausage)
a box of Mexican style Velveeta cheese
a can of Rotel (hot)

Directions:

cut up the Velveeta into one inch cubes, either half the box for a small amount, the whole box for a huge amount
fry up the Chorizo, two sausages for half a box (above) or four for the full box, drain
put the Chorizo and the can of Rotel into a crock pot with the cubed Velveeta, a sauce pan on the stove will work if you don't have a crock pot
cook it for a few hours in the crock pot, mixing occasionally, and you're good to go, if you're using the saucepan, just don't leave it unnattended

That's it, and you're good to go. Even the prep time, if you can call it that, is minimal. This one is tasty, and one of my favorites. If you don't like spicy stuff, switch the Rotel to regular. Good with tortilla chips, corn chips, and the like.

Bean Ole Dip
Ingredients:

one can of refried beans
one small onion
a block of cheese

Directions:

dice the onion
shred the cheese
put everything in a pot and cook it

Yeah, it's that easy. This one is neat because it can change quite a bit just depending on the cheese you put in it. Cheddar, Monterrey Jack, even Swiss, it's all good and every time makes for a different dip. If you're not a big onion fan, maybe try half of a diced one, me, I put in the whole thing. This one is good with tortilla chips and the like, but you can also dip flour tortillas in it, or even spread as a burrito filling.

Hidden Valley Dip Dip
Ingredients:

one packet dip mix
one 16oz container of sour cream

Directions:

put them in a bowl and mix together

I saved the easiest, and most non-original, for last! This one is a delicious no-brainer, costs next to nothing, and is stupidly easy to fix. If you can chill it for a couple of hours beforehand, even better. All of these reasons make it a perfect game table dip too, heck, you can even make it at the game table! Good with pretty much anything you can buy in the chips section of the store, not to mention veggies like carrots, cauliflower, and broccoli.

Yo Gamma Gamma

2012-01-15T10:27:00.001-05:00

My Christmas present to myself this year was a double-shot of the new Gamma World. Me? I'm a big fan of Gamma World, I always have been, having first played it back in the mid to late eighties. I love the gamma-goodness, the fires not born unto serious post-apocalyptic forays but more fanciful romps through the rubble-strewn world after "the event".

I picked up the core box set and the first expansion, another boxed set known as Famine in Far-Go. Some fans of the game may recognize that name because Famine in Far-Go has made an appearance before. From what I can tell, based on sketchy memory of the original and cursory glance of the new one, they're both in the same vein as well.

As for the boxed sets themselves, I'm a simple guy and I don't need all the doo-dads really, and the boxes come doo-dad-a-plenty. Above is shown all I'm asking for; a couple of rulebooks and some cards. The rulebooks are dense, very dense and in full color with plenty of charts, examples, fluff, and more. They're also digest-sized, which is nice too. Surprisingly, the Far-Go expansion book is almost as big as the core book, with a little over half dedicated to the adventure but the rest being supplemental material.

The cards are a new Gamma concept, and I didn't know exactly how they would work. Having read up on the rules now, the cards seem very cool. You don't have one mutation, one psychic power, or one laser rifle...all of these things are constantly fluctuating. When it's time to roll for initiative, everyone at the table draws a new card. You may have had telekinetic mind blasts when you fought the Croc-Men yesterday, but today you've got wings and you're up against rogue robots. It's a weird concept, but for the setting it works. Technology and 'junk' is everywhere, your equipment is always changing, and mutations are always in a state of flux.

Character creation is also gloriously random, again a weird concept usually for an RPG, but one that works perfectly in this setting. We haven't played yet, so I can't speak too much on gameplay (if at all) so I'll just focus on what all you get in the box(es).

Above are all the counters you get. Lots of counters on card sheets that necessitated the size of the boxes themselves. Too many counters; counters for player characters, counters for monsters, counters for NPC's. I'm sure counters have their place, but we don't use them and I'm not a huge fan of them.

You also get some maps. Who doesn't like maps? It's not a roleplaying game if there's not a map somewhere! Gamma World does come with maps, nice stock, full color, double-sided even. The expansion has some maps in it too. I'm all right with some maps.

Somewhere in a box in the garage I've got all of my old Gamma World modules. I also scored the Thundarr the Barbarian boxed set recently as well. Lots of good, fun source material for a new version of the game that equally looks solid and fun.

LEGO Thursday: You're Eating People! Lego People!

2012-01-12T23:19:00.009-05:00

Tuxedo-equipped Minifig Groom's Cake

Last summer fellow gaming buddy Bi3cuit, longtime resident artist around these parts, got married. Being the AFoL that he is, there was Lego baking to be had at the reception. He saved the head for a game night a week later. I ate the eyeball.

Assassin's Creed Revelations and Impressions

2012-01-09T15:08:00.003-05:00

By the light of Assassin's Creed Revelations in the foreground I give you my 'old man Ezio' impersonation. That's right, my old and tattered 'lucky' gray hoodie is about as close to "cosplay" as you, my dear friends, will ever see me. Now as for firstborn, she had to get in on the Assassin's Creed dress-up too, here she is sporting the 'royal indigo' print (costs about 2000 gold in one of the shops) and is wielding the sheath to my good tomato-slicing kitchen knife. Even without the beard she makes a far better Ezio than I do!

I played the first Creed game and thought, "Wow, this is pretty cool, a bit repetitive, but pretty darn cool." The action was good, the story pretty neat, and admittedly, the historical details really enhanced it. Then came the sequel, Creed II, and I was blown away, I still contend it's one of the all-time videogames out there. The scope, the depth, the story, the mechanics, I was just blown away, they took everything they learned from the first one and made it better. Then Creed II Brotherhood came out. A sequel? Kind of, just more of a super expansion of Creed II, they added some neat little additions and tried to make a multiplayer out of it too. I liked the extras, more of the gameplay was cool, and overall I'm clicking away, still a happy Assassin's camper.

Now comes Creed Revelations. The makers, Ubisoft, know they have a good thing on their hands. They've perfected and tweaked everything into a well-oiled machine, but in a way that's also the problem. Revelations is more of the same, for better or for worse.

Instead of Italy, you're in Constantinople. The NPC's wear brighter clothes and have different accents, but it's the same game. The story doesn't go to any great lengths to suck you in either and a lot of the facets I enjoy, like buying/upgrading armor/weapons and the like, seems tacked on and doesn't hold any gameplay value.

It's a weird situation, if you played the other Creed titles, and loved them like I did, you're going to like this one too. I enjoyed it, but nothing new was added to my experience. Up until now each title added extras the previous one didn't, extras that added to the overall game. Any extras in Revelations are just kind of there. Like I said, it's a tried and true template, it's hard to go wrong with, but this will probably be my last Creed game unless they really add something new the overall experience the next time around.

As for storyline, well it's a bit convoluted but they do seem to be shooting for some kind of closure, wrapping up any loose ends for either of the main characters from the previous three games, Ezio and Altaîr. There aren't any cliffhangers for those two and you don't get the impression they'll be coming back. Now the other main character, without any spoilers I'll just say Desmond, is definitely poised for a return comeback down the road.

If you're a huge fan of the series, you've probably already picked this one up, if not, I suggest doing so. If you just looking for a great game and not planning to experience the whole Assassin's Creed universe, I would turn to the used aisle and pick up regular ole Assassin's Creed II.

Join the Armies Army!

2012-01-07T10:04:00.003-05:00

I'm following on the heels of my buddy Spacejacker over at Tiny Solitary Soldiers with this one, but it's worth spreading the word. If you're so inclined, re-post this in your own neck of the woods as well. We're looking at some greens of the 15mm variety and as you can see they're perfect for near-future to post-apoc and everything in between.

Armies Army is a new blog, as in just two posts as of this writing. They're "testing the water" with these greens, but I think they're definitely onto something. As far as I know there's no definitive production plans, but maybe with enough buzz generated we can make that happen sooner than later. These images are all borrowed directly from Armies Army, you may as well head over to the source and check 'em out there!

15mm sci-fi has been no stranger here at Mik's Minis, and these buggers would fit right in for sure. They've got the kind of details I get excited about in a good mini too; the weapons are 'almost' recognizable, very much modern AK-47's, but in the right light they could be the light assault rifle of a planetary militia two systems away four hundred years from now. The uniforms are great; fatigues with some tactical pads and the facemasks could be painted as re-breathers, hoods, or even alien skin. My favorite part of the figs are all those pouches, pouches are cool. They hold all of your stuff. So what are you waiting for? Get out there, tell your friends, post on your blogs, and join Armies Army!

First Purchase of the Year

2012-01-05T22:32:00.005-05:00

I picked up a pair of Reaper's alien Illyrians today from their excellent Chronoscope line. I've had my eye on the scout for some time, it's pretty much the style I like the best; sci-fi, kind of cartoony, lots of detail and fiddly bits. The named agent is newer to me however and I'm not blown away by it, the hair is a bit much for me, and the giant calculator it's holding isn't helping either. So, still not painting, still trying to put the game room back to working order, but these little aliens will be waiting on me when I do. Rock on!

LEGO Thursday: LEGOLotR

2012-01-05T22:32:00.003-05:00

Not the freshest announcement by the time this has rolled around, but still, how exciting is this? Of course if you're not into LEGO, and/or not a big fan of Lord of the Rings then the announcement that LEGO has picked up the LotR franchise probably doesn't mean too terribly much to you. But then again if you're not a fan of either one of those...how did you find this place? Due out next summer, start saving those shekels.

We Must Get it from Somewhere

2012-01-04T14:42:00.001-05:00

"This burger captures the scent of a Bavarian meadow after a fresh winter snow. Inspired by the German people who invented the Hamburger outside of Hamburg, Germany. Mushrooms are collected by manly fairies in the upper Alp valleys. The tomato was hand grown using fertile techniques of hand patted manure. Note the glimmer of crystalline fields covered in dew drops. Therefore the perfect burger." Love, dad

This isn't my burger, and it's not my flavor text (ha, get it, "flavor text") but it's not far from me genetically. It's funny because when I got this email from my Dad titled "Burger Wars" earlier today I had to laugh. It looks like one of my burger pics (for those keeping score here and here) and the text certainly sounds like my usual self, it basically could be one of my own random blog posts...without any editing either.

So it got me thinking as to what it is we do here gaming-wise. Often we reminisce about what games we first started playing, but why did we play them? Dungeons and Dragons was forbidden in many childhood households in the 1980's, so kids rebelled and played it at friends' houses. On the the flipside there were a lot of parents out there who encouraged it (yes, reading, writing, and imagination might actually be good for a ten year old).

I don't know, as I'm pushing forty I guess I'm still recognizing how much all the moms and dads, aunts and uncles, grandparents and the like influence us more than we realize. As for the burgers themselves above, I can only surmise the following since the email lacked any meat to it (ha, I'm on fire today!). It looks like Swiss cheese generously melted over a heaping mound of sauteed mushrooms and served up on an onion roll. If this is indeed the first salvo in a "Burger War" then it was pretty good one.

Power Grid and a Healthy Dose of Irony

2012-01-02T13:00:00.000-05:00

So our last game of 2012 was the highly rated Power Grid on the eve of New Year's Eve. It was also the first time we had played Power Grid, so I was looking forward to it. After the board was set up and everything was good to go, the real life power went out! We played by candle light for about the first forty five minutes or so.

In Power Grid, as the name suggests, the goal is to link up your many cities with power lines and be able to fuel those cities every turn. Of course for fuel you have to buy resources, which are limited, and of course everyone else is buying them as well.

You buy different power plants to fuel the cities and some are more efficient than others, from fossil fuels like coal and oil to green energy, uranium plants, and even garbage burning plants there are a tone of options and you can set your strategy up based on these. But the game is also dynamic, so as it moves forward towards the end, you've got to change as well. If you stick with coal burning plants the whole game you're going to be struggling in the end. Hmm, kind of like real life!

At first glance it looks like any number of "train games" out there, which are fun mind you, but with so many already out there why bother with this one? Well the resemblance is on the surface only, it plays quite differently. There are a few phase to each turn, and turn order for these phases changes player to player, if you're in the lead you're still not always going first. When power plants come available to purchase, players all take turns bidding on the them auction style. This mechanic was a lot of fun and got everyone involved. It's also a tricky one because if you spend all your money on an awesome power plant, you won't have any to buy resources with or build new cities and power lines to those cities.

At every turn a little bit more of how awesome this game is really is shows through. All of the little nuances and strategies are only going to be revealed with consistent play, so I don't know if I would relegate this one to the back shelf only to be played once every six months or so.

It was a lot of fun, and everyone not only enjoyed themselves but we picked up quite quickly, you'll know what you're supposed to be doing turn to turn in no time. Unlike some other great games I've played, Dominion comes to mind, you're also not playing "solo" with your buddies, what you do at the table is entwined with what everyone is doing.

It's pretty inexpensive, as low as thirty bucks depending where you buy and you get a lot of components packed within. One thing that really impressed was that the map was double-sided too. The side we played on was the United States with its cities, but on the backside was a full-size map of Germany to play on. Most companies wouldn't put both maps in the same box, but rather make you pay for a second European edition. All in all, good stuff, I can see why it's ranked fifth overall on Boardgamegeek, enjoy!

2011 Year in Review

2011-12-31T12:20:00.005-05:00

Another year down for Mik's Minis which means it's time for another award-winning YEAR IN REVIEW! Okay, maybe not award winning, but it's time to reflect nonetheless.

The first thing I am not going to do is dwell on last year (2010) compared to this one, constantly comparing the two. I'll say it just once, to sum up, 2010 was a much more productive year for me than 2011. There, we can move on now.

Keeping my 'totals' box to the left has been handy as always, but my HUD idea didn't motivate or keep me on track like I had hoped. I'll leave it up there for now, but it's more of a reminder of what I'm not getting done than what I should be doing!

Games Played: 121
Basically I played a game every three days. Not too shabby, and looking back there is a good deal of consistency to boot as well, something I've lamented in the past. My top slot goes to Blood Bowl, in which I raked in twenty matches of this timeless classic. I've been playing Blood Bowl for for a very long time, off and on of course but going on twenty years now. It doesn't get old, it really is an amazing game, and maybe why it has the lion's share of gameplay this year. Not too terribly far behind is Thunderstone with thirteen plays. Thunderstone is a quick and easy pick up game and always mixes things up game-wise, each time you play it's a different game.

But Blood Bowl and Thunderstone are more boardgame than anything else, what of the RPG's? Three roleplaying games logged in about the same amount of plays; Deathwatch and Fiasco both with five plays each and FATE's Legends of Anglerre with four plays.

You know what 2011 is lacking though? Miniatures games. Might of Arms and PKowboys both lead the minis games with lackluster three plays each and Gutshot is the runner up with two plays. All other minis games logged just a single play each (and there weren't that many to pick from). Wow, I just didn't spend any time pushing around little toy soldiers in 2011 huh? I may have to rectify that for 2012. Here's a link to all the various and sundry games that went down in 2011.

Miniatures Painted: 30
I don't have much to say in my defense in this category. Thirty painted miniatures is absolutely atrocious I will say that. Atrocious! Thinking back to the last category though, if you're not playing miniature games, you simply don't paint miniatures, that's all there is to it. Thirty minis painted, sheesh, moving on.

Miniatures Bought: 23
I guess the upside to not having painted that many figs this year is that I've saved a ton of money in money spent on figures! This means that I painted 130% of the figures I bought as well. A 130% rating is nothing to sneeze at! Still, twenty three figs in the big picture is what? Not even a platoon? I'll just have to tell the missus that in 2012 I need to spend a lot more money on figures.

Terrain built: 4
For some reason I didn't include a 'terrain built' wrap up last year, and with just four pieces done this year one might ask why add it now? Well it's in the box on the left, so in here it goes. I built four pieces of terrain. In a year. One per quarter. The sad thing is that all four of these were cd-based pieces, so they weren't very large at all. Terrain is what makes our world go 'round, it's what makes the games we play that much better. So what's a good goal for terrain making? One a month? I don't know, but four might not be cutting it.

2011, as judged solely by these totals, was something of a wash. Oddly enough however, it felt just as 'full' to me as any other year. Ah, but these are the things we do, not who we do them with. I wouldn't have been able to log in over a hundred games played if not for the other great players sitting around the table. I would've had zero need to paint figures if not for my buddies with their own painted figs of which to battle. Lastly, I wouldn't have even considered writing this blog if not for you, the readers, out there. It's because of all of you that I do what I do here. I think I'm ending it there, happy new year!

Holiday Loot Haul

2011-12-30T16:40:00.002-05:00

I had said that this moment was coming, and that moment is upon us my friends...the holiday loot wrap up! Thanks to the amazing Amazon wish list, the giving gifts to Mik season is much easier. It may take some of the fun out of it but when you have hobbies as specific as ours any ole random present won't do! That being said, I was still in store for many a surprise this holiday season, one of which I'm wearing at the big family Christmas dinner party over yonder to the left. All right, enough, on to the loot.

Legends of Anglerre is one of those books I've had on my wish list forever and just never saw myself actually getting. It's also one of those books I kind of need because we do so much with it, especially as of late. I get by with the PDF, but for roleplaying books I kind of prefer, well, a book. Needless to say, I was very happy to pick that one up. Next up is the Thundarr DVD boxed set. Thundarr! As a kid I loved Thundarr and as an adult gamer now there are so many nuggets and gems to extract from it, especially for post-apocalyptic settings. If you don't know about the world of Thundarr, Lords of Light! Get to it!

Assassin's Creed Revelations follows suit and since I just conquered all of Skyrim, it's pretty good timing. Having played a little bit so far though I can see why it got lackluster reviews, it's more of the same without anything new. Mind you, if you loved the previous Assassin's Creed games like I have, then it's no problem.

I got a mandolin book as well, though mandolin playing isn't something I blog about it is something that I do from time to time, and this book in particular has a bit of a personal connection as well, so I was quite happy to unwrap this one. I also got a movie, the New World. In this day of Netflix and cable and what-not it takes quite a bit for me to want to permanently add a movie to the collection, but this is one of those movies.

My wardrobe grew as well, including a Captain America shirt, a Green Lantern shirt (whose tag claims it glows in the dark), and a rockin' San Fransisco Giants ball hat. Finally would be a pair of Two Hour Wargames 5150 rulebooks, the pseudo-rpg/narrative skirmish game New Beginnings and the campaign/scenario book First Contact. New Beginnings at first glance looks incredibly detailed and is easily over two hundred pages. It seems to have a little bit of everything in it so you can make your games as detailed as you want. First Contact is basically a set of scenarios designed around a central narrative; rebels on Mars breaking away from their Earth benefactors. For what it is it looks cool.

That's it for the loot wrap up, which means this year is fast coming to a close. Stay tuned for tomorrow's post, the third annual Year in Review. Until then, enjoy!

The End of LEGO Thursday?

2011-12-29T18:16:00.009-05:00

I can't believe this is posting at the end of December, the end of the year. Back when I started LEGO Thursdays I thought it might be good for, maybe, the summer. But the entirety of 2011? Forget it. I'm typing this in the middle of June, so it's kind of weird.

I joked with my wife that if some terrible fate should befall me that I've got LEGO posts queued up for the next six months, so I'll still be blogging from beyond the grave! Kind of morbid to think of, but also kind of neat that my geek legacy would be both this blog and LEGO content. Err, also kind of sad if that's the extent of my legacy!

But let's not dwell on that! Last week's Water Merchant and Bodyguard was the last of the archived images and content so I thought it would be a good transition.

I've always got Lego content, just because the archived stuff has dried up doesn't mean I can't keep it going with new stuff. I have nothing for this post but since it is literally the last Thursday before 2012, we have to have something!

A Cthulhu Christmas to You!

2011-12-24T22:31:00.000-05:00

Happy holidays to everyone out there! I thought I'd share this pic before it got wrapped up, a friend of mine made this Great Old One cutie for my daughter and she did a great job. So to you and yours and whatever it is you're doing, enjoy!

I figure I'll have a "look at what I got" post or two, get through the holidays, and then get it on come 2012 with this thing back to what it should be!

LEGO Thursday: Water Merchant and Retinue

2011-12-22T18:16:00.003-05:00

It didn't take long to port all the new (at the time) fantasy figs over to my preferred genre, that of sci-fi. Similar to a post-apocalyptic environment, I saw this as a chance to create something of a harsh, backwater world away from the prying eyes of the galactic center.

Here power and wealth boil down to who controls what commodities. I decided on water as the number one commodity, and the ghastly looking gentleman in the black cloak is the water merchant. Sure I'm using a skeleton head, but it could easily be some type of alien. For his bodyguard I went with the Orcs, they're brutish enough to stand in for hired muscle, and with the green skin and protruding canines, they're easily recognizable enough as any number of thick browed sci-fi staple, reptilian or otherwise.

The Water Merchant

Bodyguard and right-hand man with heavy pistol, armor, and data-slate

Praetorian with impact shields, assault rifles, and heavy armor

Standard gear of a house praetorian is as follows. They are equipped with heavy armor, flexible in movement but thick enough to stop standard small arms as well as blast damage with reasonable tolerance levels. It also has a built-in nutrient suite and waste recyclers.

The helmet of the praetorian is the most recognizable on the streets, and one of the most sophisticated pieces of equipment for a non-status individual around. The wealth and influence of the water merchant ensures that the soldiers under his employ have only the best. The helmet has a full-spectrum sensor suite with auto-weapon link-up and target assistance software. It also boasts an impressive HUD that maintains a constant link with the control room back at the merchant's compound where vital signs, communications, and other information are continuously monitored.

The impact shields are another sought after piece of high technology. They incorporate a small-yield repulsor shield similar to the type found on bulk cruisers. This extends the coverage beyond the physical perimeter of the shield itself to cover most of the user. An optional mode that can be utilized is where both shields are planted into the ground and can converge to create a force bubble around the users and have room enough for one or two occupants in the center. This mode will quickly drain their power reserves, but can provide for a highly protective shield barrier at a moment's notice.

Rounding out the kit of the praetorian is their assault rifles. Made of high-grade materials and of a quality standard unknown among standard small arms, these rifles are an effective and reliable asset in the field. They are equipped with HUD links that co-witness with the helmet. The rifle itself has a variable ammo hopper which can switch between two different types of ammunition with just the flip of a switch. Praetorians usually carry multiple magazines of various types of ammunition on their person. In addition to the variable ammo, there is also an underslung, high-yield kinetic slug-thrower useful for large targets, breaching entries, and the like.

The Bulwark

2011-12-21T00:48:00.001-05:00

The Bulwark has stood time immemorial as one of the cornerstones of the city of Warsaw. Some say it stood ground when the city itself was a mere trading hub, when oral histories replace recorded works it is always hard to determine.

The Bulwark is home to the Sentinels of KORE, a warrior cult that have occupied its halls for as long as anyone can remember. The Bulwark is surrounded by a short but thick defensible wall with intermittent battlements. A curious feature considering it is within the confines of the city proper. It is assumed that it is an architectural remnant from an earlier time. Part temple, part training grounds, even part meadery, the Bulwark seemingly provides for the needs of the KORE Sentinels whatever they may be.

The Hall of Heroes: The path leading to the Bulwark's main entrance is lined with stone statues venerating Sentinels of old. Within the hall are iconic weapons held in cases and on display as well as tapestries detailing the history of the KORE Sentinels.
The main level also houses the living quarters of the leaders of KORE, as well as an enormous dining hall replete with a full tavern.
The Barracks: The first level below ground is dedicated wholly to the living quarters for the rest of the Sentinels. At their fullest capacity the Sentinels number one hundred individuals and the barracks below are able to comfortably house them all. Quarters range from several bunks together to individual rooms for one occupant. Accommodations are made for those whose physical makeup require additional room such as half-giants, centaurs, and the like.
The second level below the Barracks is home to only two entities; the Inner Sanctum and the Armory. The Inner Sanctum is a large, vaulted chamber with dozens of shrines to a number of deities far and wide. Sentinels come from an incredibly diverse number of backgrounds and cultures, and as such the Inner Sanctum sees all types of representations. A collective spirituality pervades throughout the chamber and it is not uncommon for warriors unaffiliated with any of the deities to spend time in the sanctum before embarking for lands unknown. The Armory is as it sounds, the area of the Bulwark that houses the bulk of the weapon stores. Mundane and unique items alike can be found within and with its location one would feasibly have to pass through the one hundred warriors above in order to reach it.
The Underholme: There are chambers lower than the two levels already mentioned, but access to these are restricted even to a majority of the members of the warrior lodge itself. It is even said that there are access tunnels that connect to the catacombs beneath Warsaw.
The Maul: Situated between the rear of the Bulwark and the natural rock outcroppings of the southern part of the city lie the practice and drill grounds. The surface of the ground is covered in the shields, helmets, and armors of fallen foes, all hammered flat. Nothing of the dirt below is visible. Other trophies of past battles and conquests exist in the form of hides, horns, skulls, and other totems taken from the many dangerous monsters that inhabit the Tainted Earth. These are kept in magically sealed glass coffers, displaying the remains within. The Maul is also large enough for all of the Sentinels to muster at once if need be.

[I know posts here have been less frequent than Bigfoot sightings, but with the new year on the horizon, as well as new RPG campaigns kicking off, hopefully I'll start getting back into the swing of things. The above is part of what should be a slew of little write ups for a pending FATE campaign. Rock on.]

LEGO Thursday: Adversaries

2011-12-15T18:16:00.005-05:00

You can't always be fighting dragons or goblins, sometimes you just have to duke it out with oppositely-aligned people of your own race.

A single, tooled-up and skilled bad guy can sometimes be a handful for a whole party if done right. Here on the left is just such a character, an Elf assassin. He's just as deadly with the bow as he is with his saber. He's got all kinds of stealth and can pick a pretty mean pocket if need be.

Don't let the smile fool you, these sellsword mercenaries are relentless in their pursuit and once signed to a contract, cannot be swayed. The human is an exotic weapons master and knows a thing or two about hand-to-hand combat. The Dwarf doesn't speak, but defines his actions by sword and prowess. Both have an obvious eastern vibe going on.

Pike and Shot: Battle of Coutras

2011-12-11T12:50:00.000-05:00

The Battle of Coutras, fought on 20 October 1587, was a major engagement in the eighth and final war of the French Religious Wars between an army under Henry of Navarre (the future King Henry IV of France) and a royal army led by Anne, Duke of Joyeuse. Henry of Navarre was victorious. -Wikipedia

So I'm scrolling through my 'edit posts' the other day and ran across a draft, gasp! This thing got buried and only now has it resurfaced, embarrassingly enough it was a playtest for a Fall-In! game that has long since come and gone.

Using the Pike and Shot variant of Might of Arms we lined up our 15mm forces on a whopping ten foot table and duked it out. It is usually in games such as this where I don't go into it with any sort of preference of which side I play on or what-not.

Okay, I lied. This time around I did have a small request; I wanted to play some cannons!

The game pivoted on what all of the cavalry on both sides were doing

I have to admit, it is kind of hard to accurately report on a game a couple of months after it took place. For my part, I inched my foot troops forward, not wishing to fully engage but also avoiding a charge, my focus was on the cannons. Once I found my range with them, I unleashed volley after volley into the enemy foot, whittling them away.

We did call the game early because the middle of the table was the most decisive as Henry of Navarre's cavalry began to get rolled up. Had we continued, my unscathed foot would have been able to tear apart the remnants of targets my cannon batteries kept pounding. I would've secured my end of the table, but I can't stress enough how it was the cavalry, both heavy and light, that became the real factors in the game.

This game traveled on to Fall-In! with tweaks and changes derived from this playtest and all accounts told it was a success. Until next time!

Winter Garden Signs of Life

2011-12-10T21:44:00.001-05:00

So even though the gardening season is long dead, some of you may recall that I tried my hand at winter crops this year. Above you have the two groups I planted; broccoli and Brussels sprouts, and yes, "Brussels" is a proper name. I'm pretty excited because looking at them they seem to be doing exactly what they're supposed to even though we've had had multiple mornings with frost and a few nights with temperatures dropping below freezing.

Hey! It looks just like broccoli!

I know what a Brussel sprout looks like, and although these plants seem to be as healthy and vibrant as the broccoli, I've seen hide nor hair of the actual sprout. Too bad because I have a great recipe in mind for when they finally do get here.

Overall I've enjoyed tinkering around with these plants and it is kind of neat to keep the garden going after the 'big' garden has withered and died. Maybe next year I'll try potatoes or onions. Until then, enjoy!

The Homage Autobiography

2011-12-09T21:46:00.000-05:00

When I posted my "Terrible Tower" a couple of weeks ago my buddy Spacejacker of Tiny Solitary Soldiers sent me this hilarious image. If I were to write a book, well I have no idea what it would be about, but with this self-fulfilling prophecy I guess I would have to name it "I Wanted to Build a Tower, so I did." Anybody know any desperate publishers?

LEGO Thursday: Some More Castle Sets

2011-12-08T18:16:00.005-05:00

First up is the small set of the 2007 Castle line, it was just a single human knight. He came with a ton of stuff however as you can see. If you had a spare mini-fig laying around you could put all the extra gear on them and have two figs. With the breastplate and full-faced helm, you wouldn't be able to tell if the extra was from the City series or whatever.

The next, the name I forgot, was a small/medium set pitting two humans with a catapult against two Undead behind a barricade. There were basically four factions in this series. The Dwarves and humans were the good guys and the Undead and Orcs were the bad guys. This gave plenty of variety too, maybe too much so. There were hints of a Wood Elf race to be introduced later but that may have been left on the cutting room floor.

A larger set, the Skeleton Ship Attack was pretty cool as well. It featured a good-sized human fortification and an awesome skeletal pirate ship, complete with skeleton pirate captain. Because they were cramming two things into one box, the ship wasn't the largest it could be, nor was the human fort.

The Troll Battle Wheel is a great set as well. I like to call it the Orc Battle Wheel, but whatever. It's a giant wheel of doom, rolling, crushing doom! It also has some kind of rocket that fires out of the middle, dunno about that. It has some very cool build features too, making the wheels were kind of neat. First you build them flat, like train tracks, but most of the pieces are joints. Then you just roll them up into a round shape around the center spokes and voila, instant huge Orc wheels of doom. It also came with an Orc hero looking fig.

This and That

2011-12-07T21:58:00.002-05:00

It's almost like I can kick back and let LEGO Thursdays do all the work for me! Unlike the break-neck end of the gaming year of 2010, the end of 2011 has a steady pulse, albeit a weak one.

There's still signs of life at Mik's Minis, not that *you* would know it though. I'm happy to report the game room is coming along quite well. When you're shouldering all of the work pretty much by yourself, not outsourcing it to a contractor, it's both slow going and not exactly professional. It might have something to do with the fact that production has been entirely to the tune of Miller Lite and Black Sabbath. Other than the slow going part I gotta say it looks pretty darn good. New paint, new carpet, the works. Now I need to start cramming it full again with gaming stuff!

I mentioned back during Thanksgiving that I was thankful for Skyrim. That still holds, but it's a double-edged sword you know? It's the type of game designed for a player like me from the ground up, but that means I can happily get lost in the tiniest morass of minutia for hours and hours and hours. Hours that should be put to finishing the game room!

I plopped a cover image of the Pathfinder RPG up top for a reason. It's no secret that Pathfinder is gaining momentum around many roleplaying tables as we speak so we jumped in just this evening. We played a very short introductory adventure with pre-generated characters, but it felt great. After looking through the core rulebook and the Inner Sea sourcebook I can say this is something I personally would like to visit again. As you can see, we've already made the adventuring party out of LEGO figs, so we're ready for more.

In other RPG news, we have a couple of sessions building a world for another campaign. We used the Microscope rules and had quite a ball with them. There is an excellent corkboard mockup of all of our work that can be found here. It was an easy process to get to know, and the world we made has a lot of promise, plus it spans such a gap chronologically there are many options in style and potential gameplay. FATE is a system we keep coming back too, and this future campaign, The Tainted Earth, is no different. We're kind of throwing convention out the window, so anything goes, such as my kilt-wearing Yeti bounty hunter armed with a necromantic energy rifle! Sculpt that one Eli!

I'm still posting leftover and prematurely hatched material to the Mik's Minis sister twitter account for those interested; cygnus46 is the username. Still just photos, still 95% gaming related, and still no text, just the way I plan to keep it.

Until next time!

LEGO Thursday: They Call it a Mine...a Mine!

2011-12-01T18:16:00.008-05:00

When the Dwarves' Mine hit the scene it was a pretty amazing set. It came with scads of Dwarves, a decent showing of Orcs, and a big ole Troll. Not to mention the set itself was pretty cool and captured the Dwarf feel rather well.

The mine itself is very well thought out. It has multiple levels, different sections dedicated to different facets of the mine itself, and even a cool mine car track.

Weapon and armorsmith working at the anvil

A Dwarf miner by the lode cars

The Dwarf king with golden goblet and giant ruby

A warrior by the hearth, above is the ore tramway

Dwarf catapult (that really fires) for defense

All new figs, helmets, beards, swords, shields, the works...

The Dwarf mine showing you its backside

LEGO Thursday: Mail Order Loot

2011-11-24T18:16:00.005-05:00

Not much to this with this week's post. When the castle sets of 2007 came out, I was blown away, I was excited about LEGO again (eh, it comes and goes I guess). The biggest change was that they added actual fantasy elements to their tried and true medieval-based range.

Skeletons were no longer flavor text inanimate objects lying in a dungeon cell, but an undead race with necromancers and skeletal steeds! They might've called the greenskins "trolls" for copyright reasons, but we all know they were LEGO Orcs. And then they made me very happy indeed with the introduction of LEGO Dwarves.

The line was a little too short-lived for my tastes, but my wallet is thankful for it at least. This all came out about a year before I started Mik's Minis, but I was still photographing this stuff. I knew I wanted to review it, or whatever, but unsure of the format. In a sense you are looking at photos of what is a proto-Mik's Minis.

Yup, Battle Packs were another cool idea, I have no idea why they've been abandoned now. Here's one good guy and one bad guy battle pack of reinforcement troops. Also is a very cool jousting duel set between a human and an undead.

I'm Thankful For...

2011-11-24T10:39:00.000-05:00

Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim!

The bulk of the work is done on the game-room remodel!

My big ole stack of paperbacks to read this holiday season!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

LEGO Thursday: Guardians of the Terrible Tower

2011-11-17T18:16:00.007-05:00

More from last week's LEGO post, these are closeup photos of the denizens of the tower itself. If you didn't read that post you may want a refresher now. When I took these photos I had intended to make up little stat cards of each villain that had their photo on it, weapons, equipment, treasure, damage, and other stats.

I like the way this one turned out, the sun made the 'space rocks' look cool

Deleted Scenes and Bonus Material

2011-11-12T18:30:00.000-05:00

So I'm adding a new feature, or rather a new way to share items here to Mik's Minis. With a whopping thousand posts on the horizon there's bound to be stuff that gets left behind, lots of stuff actually, and that's where this idea comes into play.

Think of it as Mik's Minis Mobile, I'm going to complement material here with material there. Basically I'm using a smart phone app called Instagram, which isn't all that popular to be frank but it does what I want it to do and that is to post photographs in the same vein that Twitter posts messages.

I take a lot of photos with my phone, and a large number of them become posts here actually. But there's even more that never go anywhere, until now.

I like how bloggers like Tristan accompanies his GWPertinent with Twitter, as did the late Meatball over at My Dice Hate Me. So I'm going to do the same thing, but use photos instead of messages as the whole "a picture is worth a thousand words".

You can follow me directly on Instagram, if you have that app, but if not you can just as easily follow through Twitter. What happens on Twitter is that a link comes up when I post, which takes you directly to the photo in question. Just photos, no text unless it's a reply to someone else. It's pretty much always going to be gaming related, well, as much gaming related as this blog is anyway so if you like it here, you may like it there.

Twitter is, well, Twitter. You should know what to do there. Instagram is a smart phone app, once installed it's self-explanatory. My username for both is cygnus46, enjoy!

LEGO Thursday: The Terrible Tower of Terror

2011-11-10T18:16:00.006-05:00

I wanted to build a tower, so I did. I wanted it stocked with all kinds of bad guys, so there they are. I wanted to be an epic type of tower along the lines of a TARDIS where each level of the tower is like a mini-realm rules over by one key figure. The thing is I envisioned this not so much for a fantasy setting, but something more akin to the post-apocalypse, ala Thundarr the Barbarian, maybe a Gamma World game.

Basically it would be similar to a super-mega dungeon module that takes characters from first to tenth level or something. I didn't know where I was going with it at the time, but that was the general idea. There was also going to be a mysterious 'space rock' or element or ore or something that was super rare and super powerful. The higher up you went in the tower, the more space rock the bad guys had access to. Of course at the top of the tower, protected by all the levels below it, is the sentient space rock matriarch.

First stop, undead weapon-master level (the space rock is his brain!)

Next level, the dual-hammer guy (the space rock is a fine dust in his re-breather!)

Next up is vicious lizard-wizard with a small hunk of space rock

Cyborg space-rock-a-mancer with an even bigger chunk of space rock

The brothers of science, with their techno-wizardry weaponry

The liche, with a whole staff made of space rock

Vampire lord with spider-venom wrist gun and white space rock wand

[insert cool name of sentient, psychic space rock matriarch here]

The triple-T tower showing you its backside

Certified Zombie Ammunition

2011-11-07T20:05:00.001-05:00

Zombies are hot right now, and not just in our gaming sphere, nor entertainment media...the firearms industry is taking notice as well. Welcome to Hornady's new line of Zombie Max bullets. As it says on the front of the box; these are not toys.

So you know what you're getting into, the box is clearly labeled "certified zombie ammunition". Not just your generic Zed-head 'sploders such as heavy hollow points, Z-Max are the pinnacle in Undead defense and come in a large variety of calibers.

I gotta say it is very refreshing to see a serious product, such as real life bullets which really aren't anything but serious, being given such a fanciful treatment. Especially this "Zombie 101" crash course posted on the back of the box!

These particular specimens come in the .40 cal variety, but there are all kinds of Zombie Max ammo available; two different assault rifle rounds in very common calibers, sniper rifle ammo, shotgun slugs, and three different types of pistol ammo. If you can find it in the rubble of a Zombpocalypse ravaged city, chances are there's a ZMax round for you.

Left to right; ZMax, target round, and defensive hollow point

As you can see above, the ZMax has a very pointy, ballistic tip to it, which is an interesting configuration for being a hollow point. In the middle is a standard "semi wadcutter" round that you would see for every day use like recreation shooting and target practice. Finally the right shows a heavier bullet packing a large cavity hollow point.

The green impact tip on the ZMax round is very unique in that it does some kinetic mumbo-jumbo that makes for lots of "boom" action. Frankly, it just looks cool and green is my favorite color.

The zombies that these rounds are designed for will never know what hit them. The large hollow point on the right would still be put to excellent use in defense of the undead (so will the middle round for that matter) so the bottom line is that in the case of Zombolocaust, you've got choices.

Everyone comes out a winner, and in zombie terms winner = survivor.

LEGO Thursday: Smallworks iPhone Case

2011-11-03T10:27:00.000-04:00

There be studs!

I recently picked up an excellent iPhone case made by Smallworks. They have three colors available; white, black, and clear (which is what I got). If you look at iPhone cases and protectors out there you'll find that twenty bucks is not only a good price but comparably cheap! Of course the bottom line for me is that this thing has LEGO-compatible studs.

The case itself is a solid, clear plastic. It snaps onto your phone with incredible ease and once it's "clicked" into place, it is not going anywhere. Installation is incredibly simple.

As for the quality of the case as a protection item, it's solidly built and although I haven't dropped my phone, this seems it will save your corners at the very least.

As for looks, LEGO studs aside, it has nice and clean overall lines. The clear is kind of a nice touch too and allows you to see the phone underneath instead of covering it up.

I keep two flat 1x3's on the back of my phone all the time. I could probably take this a step further and use smooth pieces instead. Anyway, they stay on my phone and I don't notice them there, but when I need them I just pop them off and stick them on as shown above. This creates an instant easel on the back of your phone making a handy way to watch your favorite episodes of classic Star Trek, as shown below.

I have a feeling that there may be a good deal of LEGO Thursday posts in the future will involve builds around and on top of my phone. Until then I just whipped these up to give you and idea of some possibilities. Above you've got the "lizard suit" mini-fig, sitting on top of a picture of...himself.

Who needs satellite phones when you can put an actual satellite station on your phone! When I've got this antennae affixed I get really amazing range.

So there you have it, the Smallworks case is a great buy at twenty bucks simply as an iPhone protector. Throw in the fact that it's compatible with your LEGOs, and you've really got a case that's way too cool to pass up. Wired magazine said it best, "SmallWorks’ BrickCase is just like any other iPhone 4 case, except for one thing: the addition of awesomeness.”

The Shelves are History

2011-11-01T13:11:00.000-04:00

More work continues in the game room. Since it's a 'do it yourself' project, it's kind of slow going. The shelves are gone, they are officially a thing of the past. To be perfectly clear, they came out way too easily.

It was very apparent that I had not used long enough dry wall screws to secure them and only the side brackets were holding them in place. Once I popped the shelves up, they literally just slid right out of the wall with little to no resistance. Lesson learned and I thank the Dice Gods immensely for allowing me to escape a catastrophe all these years.

This pile is the last vestige of the work desk, now shunted to a pile in the garage. What do I spy? I spy a zombpocalypse survivor, a Harlequin for Tristan, and Deathwatch Librarian sporting both object-source lighting and non-metal metallics among others.

I don't know why I like taking these pictures but I find some sort of morbid fascination in seeing a lifetime of hobby stuff just heaped in piles and piles upon each other where my car should be instead. It's like a "Where's Waldo" of the gaming world.

Here's a gaggle of completed and painted figs from those shelves. I have a bunch in foam storage as well. They'll return to their display glory soon enough, until then it's off to the garage with ye!

Happy Halloween!

2011-10-31T22:03:00.003-04:00

Shutting things down for the night I just wanted to give a hearty "Happy Halloween" to everyone. The above pic is from the front of the garage this year. Good night!

The Bride and the Booty

2011-10-30T12:28:00.001-04:00

We played a "big dang" Viking game last week that was a lot of fun. We were using a highly modified set of the Might of Arms rules (so modified it's actually a completely re-written and unpublished set to be called Clans and Companies). Bob was running and hosting the game and it's a test drive for one of the many games he'll be running at this year's Fall-In. So if you like what you see here, you can get in on the action there.

There are games I don't mind just showing up at and rolling dice, but there are other times where I really want to contribute. The latter was true for this game and my 39-strong Viking Warband made the trip and joined the fray.

This was a great scenario and the table was quite the spectacle. There were no fewer than five factions at play, each with their own objectives and secret agendas. Sure, you could ally with another player if you wanted, but would it last? The scenario, as the title states, dealt with the impending wedding in the region and those faction who wanted to stop it (or support it), or just plain wandered into the middle of all of this and haven't decided whose lot they'll throw in with. We played on a somewhat sparsely terrained twelve foot table with over a hundred figs running around and a river running through the center.

Fjord this!

There was a good mix of troops; mounted, foot, heroes, skirmishers...

The action came to a boiling point in the center of the table

My warband's primary objective was basically to steal the bride. If the wedding goes through, my clan's power in the region is going to be greatly diminished, and we can't have that. Maybe a little friendly princess-napping and subsequent ransoming will let the powers at be know that we aren't to be trifled with.

Near the end of the game we had a big, beautifully chaotic mess on our hands. The bride's wagon train moved fast across the table so all the sides were scrambling to keep up and defend, or snatch and grab. Other factions present could care less about the politics of the wedding and just wanted to nab some livestock or other treasure. Unfortunately for my warband, the bride was able to be whisked away to safety by her future husband's retinue.

Here are the player handouts with the factions on them. I think we got some solid playstesting of the scenario down and any tweaks that were needed fixed whatever small gaps that might have cropped up during play. Besides that, it was just plain fun, which is what it's all about. Like I said, Bob plans on running this same game at Fall-In, it might be in the events listing somewhere. Tell him Mik sent you since I can't attend this year!

Emptying the Game Room

2011-10-29T10:34:00.005-04:00

Well the ball is finally rolling on getting the downstairs fixed after storm damage and flooding almost six months ago. I am lucky to have all of this square footage to claim for gaming, however its very nature means it often comes very low on the totem pole when it comes to household priorities. Case in point, we've lived in this house for a decade and this room has never had a coat of paint.

Thanks to Mother Nature's wrath however that is going to change. So we opted for a bit of a carpet upgrade, which will cover not just the game room but the rest of the downstairs. We figured while the old carpet was on the way out we might as well paint. No need for groundcloths or worrying about drips.

The shelves above are a bit of a debate however. They're homemade and I don't know if the "homemade" look is going to cut it anymore. Mind you, they serve their purpose, and frankly I don't know what I would use in their place but I'm still exploring options.

Of course all of that game room inventory (err, junk) has to be kept somewhere else. In this case it's my half of the garage! This will give me a great chance to filter everything before it goes back in however. So I haven't taken stuff off the walls or starting spackling or whatever, but like I said the ball is rolling.

LEGO Thursday: The Cult Arrives

2011-10-27T10:27:00.004-04:00

My advance copy of The Cult of LEGO came in the mail this week, yay! I'm keeping this teaser light, a proper review will coincide with the book's release but I can tell you this by thumbing through it already...The Cult of LEGO is an awesome book. Even if you just have a passing interest in LEGO it is definitely worth picking up.

Firestorm Armada on the Horizon

2011-10-26T12:07:00.002-04:00

I recently picked up Spartan Games' Firestorm Armada. This is something we've been talking about off and on for a while, so I figured, "What the heck?" and just got them. I also picked up the optional card deck to accompany them.

I've been sitting on a copy of Full Thrust (which are now free) for some time now, and rules such as Sunder the Stars (also free), and all give you great space battles but Firestorm grabbed me for some reason. I've already bought the rules, but I'm still interested in hearing any experience y'all may already have with these.

Ironically, it was the models that really grabbed me and even more ironically I'm in no position to plop down fifty bucks right now for said models. Problem solved, as suggested here at Mik's Minis already, why not use ships similar to the micro-scale builds shown here on LEGO Thursdays? Why not indeed? So it looks like I'll be building some new ships to run the first few games with, probably a pair of matched cruisers per side or something. Here's some past candidates in one place:

That's it for now, hopefully I'll be able to get all of these rules under my belt, run a few games, and the big catch is whether or not it will stick with my fickle gaming group. Enjoy!

Motivational Monday: That's a Lot of Lager

2011-10-24T10:17:00.004-04:00

I had these particularly large cans of Yuengling at our last Viking game, coupled with the excellent sculpted pose of the wee Viking in the foreground and voila!

This is my humble tribute to Meatball's longstanding Motivational Mondays of My Dice Hate Me. I figured we needed at least one more to kick the week off right.

LEGO Thursday: Half-Mast

2011-10-20T10:20:00.001-04:00

We're at half-mast this week in memory of BJ "Meatball" Dybus.

A Farewell to BJ Dybus

2011-10-16T09:09:00.006-04:00

It is with a heavy heart that I post this. BJ Dybus, callsign "Meatball" and author of the blog My Dice Hate Me, passed away a week ago today. I was checking in with him via email since I had not heard from him in a few days and his wife broke the horrible news.

BJ has been around the 40k blogosphere for some time now, his own blog, originally titled Extremis Diabolus, hit dirtside in 2009. Like many here, BJ and I became friends through our blogs and mutual hobbies and interests. He would enthusiastically comment on post after post here. Here is his bio as posted in his Blogger profile:

"I have been playing miniature war games since 1998. I started off with Warhammer Fantasy Battles and about a year later I drifted into Warhammer 40K. Last year I expanded into playing Warmachine and Hordes as well as my first historical wargame, Flames of War. While I do try to play competitively, I enjoy the social and fluff aspects of the hobby more than anything. I also enjoy PnP RPGs mostly D&D but RIFTS is a close 2nd favorite for me and I am now getting into Dark Heresy. I play MMORPGs as well; currently I am playing EQ2 and RIFT." -BJ

Needless to say this news hit me pretty hard. It's weird the way social circles have evolved in these times, and though BJ and I never met in person he still carried the same weight any of my local gaming buddies would when it comes to hanging out.

My Dice Hate Me has about three hundred posts, all organized neatly, and clearly labeled by subject matter. There's all kinds of good stuff in there, and it's all solidly written and worthwhile. I encourage you to read through his entries, starting with his first post introduction. It can't possibly cover the vast scope of who BJ was, but it certainly does give you a window into his life.

I look back at that first post and smile that I had left a "welcome to the blog-world" comment. Funnily enough it would be me a year or so later giving him his new blog moniker "Meatball". BJ was a medic in the Air Force and lived in San Antonio, Texas. My condolences go out to the family he leaves behind, he leaves a void in our own family here.

EDIT: Thanks to Santa Cruz Warhammer's John for supplying a link to BJ's obituary. Its information is much more comprehensive than what I have here and worth looking at further.

Bunker Buster Burgers

2011-10-15T10:08:00.000-04:00

Maybe I should change the name to belt busting burgers! These are not for the health-conscience, nor the feint of heart (literally), but they are delicious and as I tell my daughter, they make a great "sometimes" food. Like last time, I'll try to make this recipe easy to follow and even easier to execute.

Bunker Buster Burgers:

You're making burgers, so get some ground beef, ground chuck, or what have you. Don't go too lean, a little fat content in there goes a long way in the flavor department.
You're going to want some good Mozzarella cheese, the thick-sliced stuff like you get at the deli counter.
For veggies I went with onion, jalapeño peppers, and tomatoes. This can vary according to your own tastes.
An odd ingredient you don't normally see would be sliced pepperoni, a small package of these goes a long way.
Finally, gourmet burgers like this don't get slapped on a bun, while you're in the bakery/deli area getting your cheese, get some Ciabatta rolls too.

Let's get it all together:

Make your burger patties, I took a pound of ground beef and split it into thirds. For making patties I use an egg and a little Worcester sauce and just patty them up by hand.
Dice up the selected veggies you've picked out. How much? See below.
Also dice up the pepperoni, for quantity just make it equal parts with each veggies type. This will form a topping for each burger, so just eyeball it.
If your rolls aren't slice, do that now as well.
I'm assuming you've got ice somewhere, just make sure you've got half a glass full on hand for the cooking.

Let's cook 'em up:

First things first, sauté the diced veggies and pepperoni in olive oil. Set aside.
Warm up the oven to 350ºF degrees, you'll toast the rolls in here.
Get a large skillet with lid, big enough to cook all of your burgers at once and start pan frying them. This is no exact science, but I like to cook the first side a little longer (4-5 minutes) than the other side (2 minutes).
After the two minutes on the back side is done spoon on generous helpings of the saute´mixture on top of each burger, the more the merrier.
Next, cover the mixture with one thick slice or two thin slices of Mozzarella.
Immediately drop in a handful of ice into the frying pan and quickly cover with the lid. Caution: You've got hot grease that spatters with water, add these ice cubes carefully and cover quickly.
The ice in the covered pan creates a lot of steam, this trick will melt that thick cheese while locking in all the juiciness and flavor.
While everything is melting, toast the rolls in the oven.
After a minute or so, the rolls and the burgers should both be ready, serve and enjoy!

Even though a 'sometimes' food, I've cooked these up twice for company, and yeah they're a bit messy but they get very positive reviews. I usually cook burgers on a grill, so the pan frying is a big change up, but for this style burger I don't see it any other way. I try to connect these recipes to gaming, really I do, but I can't see how here. They're a bit too involved to whip out for game night, and they're not exactly appetizers or finger food. The clever title will have to be their only saving grace. Hey, it's no coincidence I posted this on a Saturday, and you probably have most of these ingredients already on hand, what are you waiting for?

Last of the 2011 Garden

2011-10-14T21:56:00.000-04:00

It was a rather wet, rainy, and overall dreary mid-October day but I trudged down to the garden to see what I had in store. Since tearing my calf muscle, trips up and down the back stairs to the garden have been infrequent (though I'm healing just fine).

It's kind of a mess down there, no weeding has been done and I could tell far too much was left on the vine longer than it should've been. But just like in Jurassic Park, nature will find a way, and there was all kinds of good stuff waiting. Nothing like the photo above to remind you why you garden in the first place.

I'm trying something new this year. I had mentioned it earlier but here are the first pics of the winter crop; broccoli and Brussels sprouts. I don't know if its the same rabbits who ate my strawberries eating these, or the leaves just fell off, but I'm not holding my breath to see how they'll turn out. Hopefully they too will find a way, we'll see.

Finally are those dang mutated, illegally-smuggled squash plants. These four are the last of their kind, most of the others were given away. I stuck my foot in there for scale.

Well, as the title suggests, this is probably the last of the garden posting this year. This could change depending on the winter stuff, but the days grow short and the night cold so juicy tomatoes and peppers are coming to an end.

LEGO Thursday: Spear of Hades, Corvette

2011-10-13T18:16:00.003-04:00

Still sticking with micro-scale ships I give you this corvette class vessel. Corvettes, historically, are small, maneuverable, lightly armed warships, smaller than a frigate but larger than a coastal patrol craft. If it had a little more meat on its bones it might have qualified for being a frigate. These are still great ships to serve on, especially if you crave action since they see the lion's share of small-scale combat in addition to larger fleet actions.

Top-down view, I like asymmetrical weapon arrays

What do our neighbors think? They see us outside spray-painting stuff, but they don't realize it's little tiny men or robots or monsters or whatever. We have a crowd of cars on any given Saturday night like we're having a party, or a poker night, but that couldn't be farther from what we're actually doing. Grown men holding up little spaceships made from LEGO blocks in the air to take artsy photos of them, its kind of humorous to me.

Here's a closeup of the Spear of Hades refueling from last week

Some Peppers...

2011-10-09T13:15:00.000-04:00

Not a whole lot to report on the gardening front, here's a handful of peppers I picked the other day. Things aren't really cooling off even in mid-October, so my "fall crops" (broccoli and Brussels sprouts) are doing well and there's still tons of everything else which I don't see going anywhere until we get a few good morning of frost.

The Viking Horde

2011-10-08T13:18:00.000-04:00

I was prepping my Vikings for game night (de-mothballing is more like it) and I realized I never had a true muster pic of them finished and all together. So here they are! It's a motley lot indeed with a real mix of figs in there including a certain seven foot tall barbarian more at home in the Forgotten Realms than on a historical tabletop (he's easy to find). I've also got more than a couple GW figs (can you spot them?) in there as well as a very dated Ral Partha fig (good luck with that one). I'm quite pleased with how they all turned out but there is one problem, there's only thirty nine of them, I think a nice round and even number like forty would be better suited! I'll let the rest of the pics do the talking, enjoy!

LEGO Thursday: Octan-6, Intersystem Fueler

2011-10-06T18:16:00.008-04:00

It is a bit of joy that I get to post this MOC here again at Mik's Minis. Way back when, actually at the very beginning of this blog, this was the first post I ever did. Now, three years and eight hundred some odd posts later it has returned.

I spy...a non-Photoshopped lens flare!

Sticking with micro-scale, I wanted this thing to be massive. Not 'star destroyer' big, but big enough that if you saw it on your viewscreen you'd be like, "Whoa..."

The Octan-6 is a one-stop shop. It cruises around the system looking for space debris, asteroids, and the like, hauls them in, and reduces/refines the raw materials into fuel and other related goods. It's a space borne refinery, production plant, oil well, and more all rolled into one.

Corporate identity is important, even in space

Here the Octan-6 refuels a corvette, the latter of which posts next week

Shut 'em Down

2011-10-06T11:51:00.003-04:00

Here's a sweet video made by my twelve year old nephew and his sister, my seven year old niece. This is the same nephew who starred in Main Versus Second that I showed here four years ago. If you haven't checked that one out you should. Enjoy!

Orphanage

2011-10-05T12:53:00.002-04:00

Robert Buettner's Orphanage was exactly what I was looking for; it was a quick read that provided solid military sci-fi in a compact package. It had a very clever twist, taking place about forty years from now, humanity has reached a comfortable (albeit complacent) existence. Complicity doesn't allow for huge technological advances however and when Earth is bombed out of nowhere by an unfathomable foe, they realize they've got a lot of catching up to do.

Jason Wander is the protagonist and this first book details his story from before enlistment, through basic training, and finally off to war. The clever part is humanity has to rely on incredibly outdated technologies at first. Wander is given BDU's leftover from WWII for basic as an example. He trains on a Vietnam-era M16.

The source of the attack is discovered on one of Jupiter's moons, Ganymede. How the attackers got there and why they're attacking Earth is all in the details, so I won't spoil it here. Needless to say, the one criticism I have about the book is it seems an awful lot like the theatrical version of Starship Troopers. It has its obvious differences, but boil it all down and its basically a different take on the same plot. Mind you, I loved Starship Troopers, so I was fine with that.

Wander isn't a cookie-cutter, two-dimensional book hero either and the rest of the cast do their best to avoid stereotypes. The united Earth force of mixed nations is handled rather well, and the technology is suitably believable and "near future". At the same it doesn't beat you over the head with it either.

My used copy was a loaner but had a $2.50 pricetag on it, well worth picking up. There's a whole series that follows but the author wraps up this book with an epilogue well into the future that will satisfy any "what happened with this..." queries. I have a soft spot for this book as well because it closely resembles a memorable d20 Modern/Future campaign we played in which similar events took our heroes to one of Saturn's moons, Titan. If you like realistic military sci-fi, chances are you'll like Orphanage, I did.

Flames of War: Germans vs. British

2011-10-04T12:06:00.004-04:00

Last week we were able to get in some Flames of War. I really like FoW, there's something about a historical miniatures game that's so huge in scope and so accessible to so many gamers. It's a great game for laid back, hanging out and rolling dice forays, or for fierce head-to-head competition (the latter which is not for me). Also, unlike other mainstream games, you've got lots of options for miniatures, you're not stuck buying one company's stuff.

Enough of my ooing and awwing though, we've got a game to report! I am very pleased to say I provided all of the forces for one side of the table, British XXX Corps, and my painted total to date equals 2065 points (mostly Shermans). We were playing late war, and the opponent was Tom's German forces which I can't elaborate anymore on, there were anti-tank guns and artillery guns, some infantry, and some other stuff.

The scenario was hasty assault, and the British were to engage the Germans on their half of the table, run up on some objectives, and hold said objectives. A bit unconventional, I still rolled to see which side I was on, and got Germans, so I would get to be one of the guys hammering my own models.

There were incoming reinforcements for both sides, and the British rolled extremely well every time, they got the most number of units on the table as fast as you possibly could. The main British force drove right up the middle while a platoon scooted around the flank.

German paratroopers were in the woods out on the flank, and their mere presence armed with Panzerfausts was enough to hold that whole flank. The British tanks preferred to keep their distance than get stuck in with these pesky troopers. A hailstorm of Sherman machine gun fire thinned the Panzerfaust ranks quickly enough, but the Germans had a 'hero' class stand, whose name I forget, that was able to save a destroyed stand of infantry each turn.

The British employed an interesting strategy that by the middle of the game seemed to not work out. They all rushed right up to the halfway point...then sat there, trying to trade turret fire with anti-tank fire. It was a good match-up, and all my British Shermans became little more than a burning steel wall. I don't know, if it was me, I would've advanced right on top of the Germans and, I don't know, tried to hold an objective. The name of the scenario was "hasty assault", that sounds pretty hasty to me. As it was, the British sat on the center line of the table, kept getting blasted, and we called the game early.

Afterwards, there was talk like, "How do the allies win this?" and the like. The answer is simple; smoke. Throw smoke at one row of artillery, then advance. I've got said answer in the form of a huge, eight strong unit of Sexton self-propelled artillery. I need to get cracking and build/paint them mind you, but I've got them at least. I've also got a recon unit of Stuarts I'd like to paint up, I just like the tank that's why I got them.

All in all it was good night of gaming and hanging out. Since we called the FoW battle early we managed to get in a couple of games of Dominion: Intrigue as a bonus. Oh, and please forgive my phone pics, I forgot to bring a real camera!

New Games In Hand

2011-09-30T15:39:00.000-04:00

Things have been quiet around here on the gaming front. I'm still doing stuff, it just hasn't been the over-the-top game-a-palooza pace that y'all have been accustomed to seeing me do. A cool thing to report on though is a couple of rulebooks I picked this week and last.

First things first is the above copy of Tomorrow's War, and man has this book been highly anticipated! It's the definitive sci-fi standalone in the same vein as the modern cousin, Force on Force. I can't wait to sink my teeth into this one, and there's a lot of sinking to do...it is a mighty tome indeed. I see it's not released for a couple of more weeks yet, so I count myself lucky to have been able to snag an advanced copy.

Next up on the new rules list is 5150 Star Army, and if you've been a reader here you know there have been a lot of 5150 games in the past. Also, readers will note there have been times where getting the rules down consistently has been troublesome for me. Well even after a cursory glance it seems all that and more has been fixed in this new edition. It's not just a new edition, it's a complete overhaul really.

In related news, I will be reviewing these two games in particular, as well as other games and the like over at Santa Cruz Warhammer. In addition to my Barter Bucketing responsibilities at SCWH there's going to be a new feature with me reviewing tabletop games, card games, videogames, movies, whatever that may be gaming related. My first review is up of the Space Marine videogame, and a preview of 5150 Star Army is due in a few days from now. I'll keep the cross-posting to a minimum, and still keep my battle reports here of course.

LEGO Thursday: Mavros Rising, Cruiser

2011-09-29T18:16:00.007-04:00

I had mentioned building scales earlier, this one I believe falls solidly into the micro-scale category. It's a cruiser, which means it's pretty much the smallest ship in the fleet that is still capable of independent operations. Serving on a class of cruiser such as this is definitely a high-note in any space naval career.

Aft-comm arrays, observation deck, and thrusters

I was shooting for sleek, deadly, and intimidating

Parting shot...

My Gutshot Con-Game

2011-09-26T14:45:00.003-04:00

Hey, that looks official!

I can't really say "I" ran my first game of Gutshot, as last mentioned here. I borrowed all of my buddy Andy's excellent Whitewash City terrain, and my other buddy Chrispy was also on hand to help out with the rules, bring some more terrain (including cool terrain mat), and even cooler action markers. My name was attached to the table though, but of course it wouldn't have even had a chance without my friends pitching in.

There were four players signed up, each person getting two characters. Frankly the game could've handled a whopping ten, but each person would only run one character each. There's a ton of great resources on the official Gutshot page, including a bunch of pre-generated characters ranging from shopkeepers and gamblers to bounty hunters and Texas rangers.

Before the game began we rolled randomly for characters, which yielded a pretty good mix of characters across the board. Skill levels are determined by the target number (TN) of the character. Starting with the lowest skilled TN's, players got to dive into a bin full of LEGO pieces and build their characters. This also yielded a lot of fun results, and got the players invested right off the bat into the game.

Every turn each character gets three actions, but these actions are random each turn (names drawn out of a hat). This makes for a very fun game 'cause you know you'll get your three actions each turn, you just don't know when!

Another thing I like about the Gutshot rules is that you don't play unless your character has a name and if that name isn't suitably "cowboy/western" it doesn't count! In case you were wondering, "the Man with no Name" also counts as a name.

Ammo is tracked in game, and if you're empty you're going to waste valuable actions later on down the road reloading. But why reload when there's perfectly good (and loaded!) weapons just laying around for the taking! Oh, and you can "fan" your revolvers too, so expect to run empty quite a bit.

As all good western tales should go, the final actions of the game were decided on in the center of the town, probably at high noon to boot. Interestingly enough, the solid TN characters like the Texas Ranger had good longevity, but it came down to a low-skilled townsfolk running around shooting everyone at point-blank with a shotgun that won the day.

Sure, you could do slips of paper, but this is a cowboy game! We used spent .45 Long Colt cartridges to track character actions, drawn out of a small bag. Drawing these out of a cowboy hat would be even cooler, maybe next time.

All in all, I love Gutshot. It plays fast and loose but guarantees a good time had by all. The rules are great for long term play and offer plenty of details, as much as you want. They can also be played simple, like we did here, making it a great pick-up or low-prep game.

I've never run a con game before and I was pretty nervous leading into it, but once people started building their figures and having fun, I started having fun as well and forgot all about my nervousness. I would definitely run this game again if given the chance.

Three Rivers Con

2011-09-23T08:19:00.009-04:00

Earlier this month there was a local, one-day gaming convention called Three Rivers Con. It seemed like a pretty cool event, and in an effort to get outside my box, I went. I was surprised, I didn't know what to expect really, but all in all it was a good day. I met some good folks, played some good games...what more could you ask for?

First off, I wasn't just a con-gamer, I was a con-game runner! That's right, the practice session of Gutshot last time was just a warm-up for this. Needless to say, I think it was a success, I've got another post dedicated just for this game, so I'll be moving on.

There's an area club that I didn't know we had that centers around boardgames. Lots and lots of boardgames. They were the core of the con it seemed, and the table you see here had a nice flyer saying if you were interested in learning a game, just ask.

I was interested, especially in the new Dungeons and Dragons games. Around the corner is the new Legend of Drizzt version, and being a fan of the fiction I figured I'd pick it up. Of course a test drive was in order so I was able to snag a game of the Wrath of Ashardalon. How was it? Good stuff, it was definitely fun enough to start saving my shekles for October.

There was also a Zombpocalypse presentation, which was entertaining. Now I realize the Zombpocalypse is just around the corner and definitely no joke, but this tongue-in-cheek "how to" was still pretty fun.

The presentation also included a "survival grab bag" demonstration

I haven't played Battletech since the late eighties, but there's was a lot of it going down here. In fact, it seemed that was all that was being played for a good eight hours straight.

There was a paint-and-take demonstration as well (which I'm told is so hot right now). This proved to be a very popular spot and it stayed full most of the time. I was blown away by the sheer amount of quality paints, brushes, and the rest available to use. Also, for those new at it, there was plenty of help and assistance from some very knowledgeable "staffers".

Hetero-gaming lifemate Andy and I had the first ever "45 Minute Iron-Painter" paint off. The minis take 'em table had an absolute hoard of great figs, not leftover junk, but good stuff. There was a matched pair of survivor figs that formed the basis of the challenge, of course it was a good natured challenge and when awesome survivor figs like this free on the line, everyone comes out a winner. So which one do you prefer? The right or the left one?

There was a table full of silent auction goods, most of it roleplaying books and a good deal of boardgames. Being a huge boardgaming crowd I was surprised to see a complete Battle for Macragge box there. I was even more surprised to see no bids on it. I'm happy to say I picked this one up for a mere ten bucks, all I really wanted was the crashed spaceship to use as terrain, the ten marines, twenty-odd 'nids, and what-not was all a bonus.

This is Trio de Rio, I just made that up. I've also just declared him the official mascot of Three Rivers Con. There was a talented, young crochet chica there making these little critters. In a few hours she was able to crank this little feller out. I gave her my info and offer for a potential commission for a Cthulhu crocheted critters. Holidays are right around the corner and those would make for some awesome, mythos-themed gifts.

Three Rivers Con? Good stuff. Fun? Yup. Repeat? Probably!

LEGO Thursday: Terra Explorer Repaints

2011-09-22T18:16:00.003-04:00

I wouldn't call repaints are the 'holy grail' of LEGO building, but they are kind of like the Sasquatch. People have seen them, but they're kind of elusive and rare. Basically a repaint is what it sounds like, taking a design and changing the colors. The trick is, if you're doing your own design, you don't have instructions so you not only have to build it the exact same way from memory, but you have to get it right. And in a different color. Oh, and you also have to have all the right pieces to pull it off. In different colors. I loved my Terra-X from the previous week so much that shortly after I built it I set out to do some repaints.

The jalopy, ad-hoc, mix-and-matched Terra-X

Blacktron crewed white Terra-X

Classic Space red Terra-X

Classic Space blue Terra-X

All four repaints with the original thrown in for good measure

The Cult is Coming...

2011-09-20T15:27:00.002-04:00

Stuffed Veggie Flautas

2011-09-17T15:04:00.000-04:00

Here's a very quick, and very tasty dish I whipped up last week. I've gone easy on the ingredients and steps below because I was improvising along the way as it is, and you should too. Here you go, Mik's Stuffed Veggie Flautas, enjoy:

Stuffed Veggie Flautas:

Make some mashed potatoes, I like to add shredded pepper jack cheese, sour cream, and/or cream cheese. For this batch I used all three, set aside for later.
Get your favorite peppers and veggies from your garden (or the store). For this batch I used all my own garden goods; jalapeño, poblano, green peppers, and some hot banana peppers.
Cut these into thin strips and sauté with a little olive oil and some fresh garlic, set aside for later.
Get a couple of avocados (if you like them, but who doesn't?) and slice up into strips.
Get some oil warming up in a large skillet, I used six cups (which is a lot) of canola oil.

Now you're going to put it all together:

Get some small flour tortillas, six or eight inch diameter.
Get your assembly line ready with all of the above fixins.
Take a tortilla and spread a not-too thick, not-too thin layer of the mashed potatoes as a base.
Next take some strips of the sauteed veggies and lay them in a line in the middle of the tortilla.
Finally lay in a slice or two of the avocado.

Now it's time to cook them:

Fold in the edges of the tortilla fist and foremost.
Next, roll your tortilla tightly, like a fine cigar, the tighter the better.
Keep it held together with toothpicks.
Lay them in the heated canola oil, you're frying them, they'll cook fast so keep an eye on them, maybe a minute or two per side.

That's it, they're not the healthiest since they're fired, but you could fool yourself and say the veggies are in fact healthy. Serve up like mine in the photo at the top of this post and if you want to be really cool, slice them in the middle with a diagonal cut like the restaurants do. I garnished mine with some cheese, more avocados (because I can't get enough), and enchilada sauce. Cook these up for your next gaming session and impress your buddies. The smaller the tortillas the bigger batch they will make, which is more finger food for you and your friends.

Mutant Squash Attacks House

2011-09-16T15:01:00.001-04:00

A few weeks ago I posted on these wacky giant squash(es?) that have been out of control. Well it's officially reached new heights of zaniness. As you can see here a good quarter of my deck is now covered with the creeping, squash-birthing vine.

You also have to remember that the squash plant itself is ten plus feet below the deck, down in the garden itself! From far below you can also see one of the body-snatching pods, I mean squash, growing to epic proportions. It's hard to believe this is all coming from a stalk no bigger than about an inch in diameter.

This is one of the ones growing on top of the deck. I don't even have to go down the stairs to harvest them, they've come to me! I've used both my foot and my dog for scale points of reference.

That's about all I've got in the garden department, although I did plant a few "fall crops" for the first time, but more on those later.

LEGO Thursday: Terra Explorer

2011-09-15T18:16:00.005-04:00

When I set out to make the Terra-X Rover I wanted something non-combative, basically a science and survey vehicle and with variable modes of locomotion. When I lifted my head off the table after an all-nighter of bricking it up, wiped the drool off my mouth, and plucked the random 2x2 off my forehead I saw this creation in front of me.

It rolls! For speed on those smooth surfaces

It walks! For those uneven and rocky surfaces

It flies, err, hovers! For traversing bodies of liquid

It takes a crew of two to fully man the Terra-X

Closeup of the rear workstation and sensor array

Adjustable controls allow the pilot to sit or stand

View from the ground

Modular science suite and array systems

The wheels may look small, but there's six of them!

Space Marine Review

2011-09-14T16:29:00.002-04:00

A couple of days ago I reviewed the new Space Marine videogame over at Santa Cruz Warhammer. You can check out the full review here. Instead of just having a repeat post here, I'll just touch on some pros and cons here and if you're still interested head over to the Santa Cruz site for the whole enchilada.

Pros:

easy button layout and simple controls
tons of customization options
quick and dirty multiplayer
excellent job of capturing the 40K universe

Cons:

a little repetitive after a while
somewhat unengaged storyline
lack of maps in multiplayer

LEGO Thursday: Adventurers Redux

2011-09-08T18:16:00.003-04:00

In this episode we see the same Forgotten Realms party from the previous week, only with a few minor tweaks and changes right before the first game of the campaign launched.

The same order applies actually, the Human cleric became a Halfling mage (far left). The Half-Orc fighter became a Human cleric (since we just lost one) from the Eqyptian-styled lands of the Realms. He pays homage to the Mulhorandi pantheon of gods and is an ambassador from those lands. A much better character concept than the Half-Orc beat-stick!

The Gnome thief (center) got a costume change, as did the Elf fighter (with gray hair), and the Human druid on the far right underwent a gender switch!

Castle Crashin'

2011-09-03T11:33:00.001-04:00

Sharpie and markers, photographed straight out of my sketchbook

A quick post today. Firstborn and I have been playing a lot of the excellent, excellent button-masher named Castle Crashers. Did I mention this game is excellent? Anyway, firstborn asked for some Castle Crasher art to adorn the bedroom door. How could I refuse? Here's one of the Barbarians, a staple antagonist in the game.

Space Marine Demo

2011-09-02T11:33:00.002-04:00

Screenshots taken directly from my television screen...

I can't speak of the other platforms, but for XBox360'ers out there the demo version of the upcoming Space Marine is out. You can play to save-points, maybe missions but they seemed a little short. One mission is played as the Tactical Marine, the other as an Assault Marine. The quick and dirty breakdown is this; if you paint 40k and you play video games, you'll end up getting this game at one point or another.

Solid shooters are plentiful, let me repeat, PLENTIFUL on the 360 platform. In this respect Space Marine isn't going to give you anything special in that department, you've got better options out there. If you're not a tabletop 40k gamer, this title will still give you a cool storyline that is thought-out and very sci-fi in nature. The setting is rich and detailed with plenty of the grit and grime you would expect.

Where Space Marine shines is where you would expect it to...as a 40k action game. There's something very cool about playing a Space Marine and seeing them do all the things Space Marines do, but animated; running, chopping foes up with chainswords, speaking with serious accents, and the like.

In the first mission you and your battle-brothers find some fallen soldiers, Cadian soldiers! Painted up, err, digitized up to look just like...Cadians, cool! A servo-skull is scanning them and then comes up to the marines, verifies them, and displays a holo-message from an Inquisitor who is holed up and needs assistance. After that you forget the decent but not amazing gameplay, or the not-so-crisp graphics, you are in the 40k universe, bolter blazing.

LEGO Thursday: Adventurers

2011-09-01T18:16:00.002-04:00

It's not even an issue really, but when we play a roleplaying game, we tend to play it long term. A short-lived campaign is as sad as, well, something really sad.

What this means for you however is that you're going to witness many incarnations of sometimes the same group of adventurers. Mind you, as the campaign develops new players show up, old players leave and so forth. Sometimes a character dies, or is just retired too.

Building off of (ha, no pun intended) all of our Forgotten Realms action is this party, the first party of that long campaign actually. As you can see, some of the characters made it for a while, while others are nothing more than an interesting footnote.

From left to right; a human cleric, a Half-Orc fighter, a Gnome thief, an Elf fighter, and a human druid

Outbound Minis

2011-08-31T11:32:00.001-04:00

Here's a couple of 40k models that got the shortcut to the front of my queue. Ironically, neither of them will be residing on my shelves, these are export only.

One is an older, third edition Space Marine Librarian updated with some newer gear. He's going to be a Deathwatch Librarian painted up for one of the winners of the Minions of the Monster Master contest that just wrapped up. That's right, just one of many winners!

The second is an old, lead Eldar Harlequin for Tristan of GW Pertinent. He's collecting Eldar Harlequins painted by other people, if you have one laying around paint it up and send it to him. If not, he's got extra Harlequins he will send you to paint up. For this one I'm going with a Death Jester paint scheme.

Assemble the Deathwatch!

2011-08-30T10:40:00.000-04:00

After wrapping up the Techmarine the other day I figured it might be a while before I paint any other troopers so I figured a muster shot was in order. I do have three other figures (two regular and one Terminator) to paint up, but they're not even in the HUD so they'll linger a while in the bits bins. Here's the breakdown...

Tactical, Apothecary, and Librarian Ultramarines

Tactical and Techmarine Black Templars

Tactical, Apothecary, and Assault Sons of Minos

Blood Angel and Salamander Tactical Marines

Devastator, Assault, and Tactical Dark Angels

The others I mentioned will get painted up eventually and added here, making for fifteen total Deathwatch troopers and a single Terminator Captain. They are; a White Scars tactical Marine, a Fists (Imperial or Crimson) Assault Marine, and the aforementioned captain whose parent chapter I don't know yet.

The Mayor of Newcastle

2011-08-29T11:23:00.001-04:00

After playtesting the High Plains Drifter PKowboys variant the other night we played a follow-up game. There were a good number of tweaks and changes we made to it, and they all seemed to work out rather well. The point of HPD is to speed of PKowboys while still keeping the essence of what makes PKowboys a great game to begin with. The point of our changes were to streamline this even more.

For this game we tried a bit more of a storyline scenario; the bad guys had the mayor of the town of Newcastle holed up in the jail. The good guys, who had been run out of town, have returned with reinforcements to save the mayor, liberate the town, and cut down the bad guys.

There's a new livery in town...and fences!

The good guys were able to get in there, smoke out the bad guys, and rescue the mayor. It was touch and go for a while, but after a couple of foes went down, the good guys were able to assault the sheriff's office en masse.

The rules went a lot smoother this time around, with the only discussion points or hiccups revolved around Piquet-specific terms and items that still linger in the rules for no other reason than "they've always been in there". Not being a dedicated-Piquet rules group however, these don't hold much water.

The High Plains Drifter (now double) modified rules work great and drive the game faster than before while losing none of the charm of the game itself. The downfall being that one-shot games are about all the mileage you'll be getting with them. Sure, in the works are extended rules for campaign play, and experience tracking, and what-not but why reinvent the wheel when games like Rules With No Name and Legends of the Old West already have those in spades?

Speaking of Legends of the Old West, my order of cowboy figs is in (six mounted, six foot) and hopefully we'll be getting some games under our belts with these. I do foresee lots of Cowboy content showing their hide 'round these parts.

Mk6 Deathwatch Techmarine

2011-08-28T11:08:00.003-04:00

On the eve of the last Deathwatch RPG game I finished up this figure for one of the players at the table. When rolling up his armor and armor histories he got both the Mark 6 Corvus armor as well as the "xenos foe" history. I don't remember the details exactly but basically his armor has the claw of some alien embedded in it. This old school Techmarine model is perfect for that since it has a Genestealer claw adorning the right shoulder.

Over at Constantly Ricking Obscurity there is an amazingly awesome tutorial on how to make your own servo-arms. It came about a month after I kit-bashed the one you see here, but it's good to know for future reference.

Of all the Deathwatch I figure the Techmarines are the most particular about their equipment, so I kept the backpack/servo-arm and the helmet traditional red. I also painted everything with a lot of wear-and-tear, scratches, dings, and dents. The right pauldron is covered by the Genestealer claw, so you can't see parent chapter livery (this Techmarine is a Black Templar) and the left pauldron looks to be a mass of nuts, bolts, and wires. Not exactly the Deathwatch symbol and crest, but I didn't want to hack up a classic model.

L to R: Librarian, Techmarine, Tactical, Devastator, and Apothecary

Here's the whole five-man team of RPG player character models. There is still one model missing, and that would be Andy's Space Shark assault marine (can't find any pics of it but here's some of his Deathwatch). Our RPG group is a little different from the tabletop group in that most of the RPG guys don't currently paint figures, that's why I painted all of these up for them to use in our Deathwatch sessions.

PKowboys Variant Playtest

2011-08-26T10:53:00.000-04:00

Tuco and Rafael emerged from two days in the desert upon the unsuspecting town of [insert clever western town name here]. Between the two of them a machete, a lever-action rifle, and a terrible thirst were all they owned.

Little did the duo know that a pair of cow-hands had just arrived as well on the other side of town. A herd the two brothers had just spent their life savings on had died of Blackleg and the bank refused to refund their money. They would have what's rightfully theirs, one way or another.

During my "pre-blog" period we played a lot PKowboys, the Piquet rules variant that covers the wild west. We managed to get in one weekend of it a couple years ago, reported here. It's a good game, I don't need to go on about here suffice it say you use random action cards and it creates an unpredictable, but extremely fun game where cowboys, outlaws, and townsfolk are shooting each other up and painting the town red.

About four years ago a set of rules were written up as a "highly modified" variant of PKowboys called High Plains Drifter. They provide greater detail where needed, speed up some of the action as needed, and have a neat little "action counter" component where you pre-decide what your character intends to do and then hope they can still do it after the dust settles. I should point out that High Plains Drifter is not intended to be published or distributed. Here's a direct quote from the author that sums up what they're all about:

"There are huge differences between PKowboys and HPD. Actually there
is nothing similar about them except for some of the card names.

HPD is my attempt at writing skirmish rules the way I envision
skirmish, 1 on 1, combat. The requirements for my skirmish rules are
as follows.

1. Must play very fast compared to rules on the market today.
2. Little or no down-time for players. Skirmish games need to be high
[octane] and players need to be always thinking about their next
tactics.
3. Game rewards folks that can think on their feet.
4. Has to be Fun!
5. Can lend itself to a campaign.
6. High drama.

I think HPD fits these criteria. HPD was intended for my club's
personal use, but after Historicon Jeff (PK Skirmish author) thought
he could use some of the ideas from HPD in PK Skirmish. So HPD is
still for personal use, but I will give it to PK Inc to take whatever
ideas they like and put them into PK Skirmish." -E. Burgess

We've had a lot of fun with Gutshot in the past, and sort of recently I picked up the Rules With No Name (which good a lot of good reviews). Andy has the Warhammer historicals lineup, and we always have the original PKowboys to fall back on...so we're not hurting on cowboy rules at all. It is nice to try something a little new and different at the same time.

The game we played here, three players running two characters each, was a run-through for a larger follow-up game two days later. That next game is in the future as I write this, but in the past as this is posted...confusing, I know, but it means I should have the follow-up game written up and ready to post for you very soon.

HPD was fun, but as to being "hugely" different from PKowboys, I didn't see it. Then again I'm usually not big on details. It was solid, but seems exactly like what it was; a modified PKowboy game, nothing wrong with that. For long term cowboy shoot 'em ups I'd like to spend some serious time with Rules With No Name (hey, they're free!) and Gutshot (hey, it's cheap!) only because I feel they give a great variety of cowboy-ness between the two of them on the tabletop and each one deserves its legitimate shot at longevity. Really, having read through the Warhammer Historical Legends of the Old West, I'm sold, I just can't find a copy anywhere!

Looks like my "minis bought" stat is about to increase... [EDIT: Actually it just did, by twelve. I picked up three Cowboy Wars packs, more on those later!]

LEGO Thursday: Hardsuits

2011-08-25T18:16:00.003-04:00

Posting all of these old pics is really inspiring me to go back and do something with some of these ideas. This was a series of attempts and test drives for me to see if I could feasibly work a solid "hard suit" design for mini-figs. The only part that's truly mini-fig here is the head, the rest of the suit is made up of fiddly bits.

Speed suit

Combat suit with melee and fire support

Armored flamethrower unit

Reaper-class gladiatorial chassis

Dual-sixshooter wielding Dinosaur Planet patrol suit

Standard enhancement suit

Maintenance suit, useful on high-grav worlds

Officer Friendly in his Riot Control and Interdiction suit

Shootout at Sundown Ridge

2011-08-24T21:34:00.000-04:00

It has been a while since we played Gutshot around these parts, but it seems Cowboy gamin' is on the upswing right now. There's a locally organized gaming con coming up next month and I've volunteered to run Gutshot there, so to get some practice for that we broke out the terrain and since I don't have any painted cowboys at the moment so I opted for some Lego figs (of course). There will be a Lego Thursday at one point detailing the figs themselves.

An unseen native scout observes the townsfolk below

In Gutshot you can pretty much play with just one character per player, which is one of the main draws to running it as a con game, you can play up to ten people with no problems. Combat isn't so deadly where you're going to die off too quickly, and there's plenty of detail on your character sheet to keep you focused and with your head in the game.

Surreal normally wouldn't be the proper term normally, but in a gaming sense, yeah it was a bit surreal. The Legos were a sharp contrast to the tabletop terrain and made for a neat overall setting. It was super-populated, with tons of NPCs and lots of random horse, even some livestock. We treated the bystanders as "portable cover", which was helped along by Gutshot's rule of near misses.

If you miss your intended target, and there's someone within an inch of said target, well, collateral damage occurs. I've been watching a lot of western movies (mostly old but some new) lately and this almost rarely happens so it's interesting to see in Gutshot.

The player characters are mounted on larger, display type bases but the bystanders were equipped differently. Originally I had envisioned a bunch of random actions of the civilians and what-not running around. It was quickly determined that this would only bog the game down quite a bit, so the random NPC movement got canned.

NPCs on yellow bases are, well, yellow. Each turn when their activation would've come up they would have randomly moved for cover, or a marshal, or the like. Those on black bases were just regular folk, they'd just move regular I guess. Ahem, as you can see I didn't fully flesh out the random NPC movement thingie. Last are those on red bases (red for danger!) and their activations would center around making attacks, usually ranged, on those PCs that are closest to them. Even writing all of this sounds complicated!

Never bring a knife to a shovel fight!

Here the "Thug" (high ground with the poncho and the knife) dukes it out with the "Sodbuster" character, who was given the shovel as an afterthought. I really like melee in Gutshot, the shooting and what-not are solid but nothing spectacular, but it's the fisticuffs that stand out for me. Instead of just making an attack you choose what kind of attack you want to do, whether it's a jab punch, a long punch, a backhand, what-have-you.

Each type of attack comes with its own target number, and each attack deals specific damage. So a backhand might be easy to perform, so it has a low target number. The catch is it's just a backhand, so it is going to do little damage. A kick on the other hand is going to do a lot of damage to your target, but it's going to be the hardest type of attack to pull off.

"Marshal! You've got to protect me, not use me for cover!"

Homesteaders...can't live with them, can't live without 'em

The dual-wielding Texas Ranger stalks his target across the pen...

...and brings the Gambler down

It was a fun game for sure, and although the rules are easy to pick up on the fly we still had to some learning on the fly as well. If you're looking for a good skirmish game set in the wild west, I'd strongly suggest Gutshot. It's good for pick up games, spontaneous games, and the like. Not to mention the book itself is quite an enjoyable read with lots of side text and other fun nuggets about six-gun life west of the mighty Mississippi.

Infantry Company; the Vākāṭakans 432nd

2011-08-22T19:39:00.001-04:00

Here is my finished 15mm sci-fi company. Unfortunately I don't have any vehicles so it's pure infantry. Some APC's would be nice, but if and when I opt to mechanize them that would be a huge project in its own right. I would need at least a dozen APC's, a command vehicle, and three drop-pod like devices. Yeah, it'd be expensive and that would be a lot of painting and assembly. The good news about 15mm though, it should paint up faster and be a fraction the cost of its 28mm big brother.

I've had these painted up for some time, with just a small amount of squads to finish somewhat recently. The figs all come from Ground Zero Games. They're great sculpts, don't get me wrong, but frankly when this project was started there just wasn't the huge outlet of 15mm sci-fi selection and variety that we have now, GZG was about the only option out there. I had a specific TO&E in mind when I put all of this together and I tried to keep the platoons separate but still let them have a bit of their own versatility and personality.

I also had a specific fiction in mind, something along the lines of Earth in the next hundred years or so. Constant conflict, global ecological changes, a few loose nukes, and what-not have created a perpetual war-zone mostly centered in Africa, the Middle East, and southern Asia. Colonization efforts are underway off-world, near FTL travel has been invented, and contact has been made amongst the stars with sentient aliens of comparable technology levels. Of course there's bigger, better stuff out there in the cosmos, we just haven't stumbled across it yet. My army here represents an Indian force.

The 432nd is a multi-role company that is made up of a variety of different types of platoons. Mixed companies such as the 432nd have the most flexibility in mission-adaptable operations and are ready for a wide number of battlefield roles.

The 432nd consists of four platoons and a headquarters squad. Three platoons consist of three squads each led by a dedicated command squad, all squads have eight troopers each. The fourth platoon consists of three power armored squads with six troopers each. Finally you have an eight trooper strong HQ squad.

The 432nd's Shudran platoon consists of troopers of the lowest overall quality. Their dependable equipment and basic training does give them something of an edge over comparable enemy units. They are found as the backbone of police forces assigned to colony ship departures. Sometimes an entire Shudran company is formed specifically to accompany a colony caravan, becoming PDF forces upon arrival. For most of these troopers service is the only means they have to leave Earth.

The Vaishyan platoon consists of the most plentiful of troopers in the overall army. The largest number of dedicated companies are ones that comprise of nothing but these troopers. Vaishyan troopers are the enlisted men and women that see the widest range of action across the most number of battlefields. These career soldiers have the better equipment in the field compared to enemy units of similar strengths and continually train when not on campaign. Special forces draw the most number of recruits from the Vaishyan ranks as well.

The 432nd counts itself extremely lucky in that it has a full platoon of Satrians, alien commandos unparalleled in fighting. Most companies are able to temporary requisition a single squad at best, and only for specific parameters. Their equipment comes from off-world, as do their strategies and tactics. It's as if every facet of Satrian warfare is a mirror of human warfare, only exemplified.

When this space-borne race was encountered it was quickly (and astonishingly) realized that the Satrians' religious doctrine was almost identical to Hinduism. The Satrians considered themselves lost pilgrims trying to find their way back to what has been loosely translated as the Indus Valley. For this reason the alliance between the Satrians and India has been fully realized and seamlessly enacted. Other nations might employ alien mercenaries, but none come close to the assimilation between these two entities.

Rounding out the platoons of the 432nd are the Kshatriyans, fearsome power armored troopers. Being chosen as a power armor trooper is a great honor and only the most distinguished soldiers make the final cut. Because of their elite training, power armored units are autonomous and do not utilize and attached command squad.

Power armor is the pinnacle of infantry battlefield technology. Thanks to knowledge shared from Satrian scientists, Indian power armored units got a leg up in design innovation and power plant efficiency. The bottom line is that these suits can last longer in the field and take up less room that comparable power armored suits.

Shown here as well is the company headquarters squad composed of top military leaders and strategists. They are equipped accordingly with high tech arms and armor and although the squad is rarely in the thick of the fighting, they are more than capable if need be.

There you have it, I hope you enjoyed reading the fluff as much as I enjoyed writing it. Looking back over this post I realize I'd like to go a little further and finish this army out. I said in the beginning it'd be a long, arduous journey, but I think this army deserves the full treatment. Namely transports, but other things like a support platoon of tanks, some aircraft or whatever, maybe some walkers even. Too many choices, a blank canvas is as much a curse as a boon.

As for rules, bah, whatever goes really. This is a large army as it stands (over a hundred models) so I don't imagine I'll ever field it all at once. Lots of candidates out there to use too, it's just a matter of getting them on the table and sticking to it.

Iron Arrival

2011-08-20T15:56:00.004-04:00

Got my Iron Man in the mail to join the rest of the Avengers...

The son of a wealthy industrialist and head of Stark Industries, Howard Stark, and Maria Stark, Anthony Edward Stark is born on Long Island. A boy genius, he enters MIT at the age of 15 to study physics. After his parents are accidentally killed in a car crash, he inherits his father's company.

While observing the effects of his experimental technologies on the American war effort, Tony Stark is injured by a booby trap and captured by the enemy led by Wong-Chu, who then orders him to design weapons. However, Stark's injuries are dire and shrapnel is moving towards his heart. His fellow prisoner, Ho Yinsen, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist whose work Stark had greatly admired during college, constructs a magnetic chest plate to keep the shrapnel from reaching Stark's heart, keeping him alive. In secret, Stark and Yinsen use the workshop to design and construct a suit of powered armor, which Stark uses to escape. But during the escape attempt, Yinsen sacrifices his life to save Stark's by distracting the enemy as Stark recharges. Stark takes revenge on his kidnappers and heads back to rejoin the American forces, on his way meeting a wounded American Marine fighter pilot, James "Rhodey" Rhodes.

Back home, Stark discovers that the shrapnel fragment lodged in his chest cannot be removed without killing him, and he is forced to wear the armor's chestplate beneath his clothes to act as a regulator for his heart. He must also recharge the chestplate every day or else risk the shrapnel killing him. The cover for Iron Man is that he is Stark's bodyguard and corporate mascot. To that end, Iron Man fights threats to his company, such as Communist opponents Black Widow, the Crimson Dynamo and the Titanium Man, as well as independent villains like the Mandarin, who eventually becomes his greatest enemy. No one suspects Stark of being Iron Man as he cultivates an image as a rich playboy and industrialist. Two notable members of Stark's supporting cast at this point are his personal chauffeur Harold "Happy" Hogan and secretary Virginia "Pepper" Potts, to both of whom he eventually reveals his dual identity. Meanwhile, James Rhodes finds his own niche as Stark's personal pilot, revealing himself to be a man of extraordinary skill and daring.

The comic took an anti-Communist stance in its early years, which was softened as opposition rose to the Vietnam War. This change evolved in a series of stories with Stark profoundly reconsidering his political opinions and the morality of manufacturing weapons for the military. Stark, however, shows himself to be occasionally arrogant and willing to let the ends justify the means. This leads to personal conflicts with the people around him, both in his civilian and superhero identities. Stark uses his personal fortune not only to outfit his own armor, but also to develop weapons for S.H.I.E.L.D. and other technologies such as the Quinjets used by the Avengers, and the image inducers used by the X-Men.

Iron Man possesses powered armor that gives him superhuman strength and durability, flight, and an array of weapons. The armor is invented and worn by Stark (with occasional short-term exceptions). Other people who have assumed the Iron Man identity include Stark's long-time partner and best friend James Rhodes; close associates Harold "Happy" Hogan; Eddie March; and (briefly) Michael O'Brien.

The weapons systems of the suit have changed over the years, but Iron Man's standard offensive weapons have always been the repulsor rays that are fired from the palms of his gauntlets. Other weapons built into various incarnations of the armor include: the uni-beam projector in its chest; pulse bolts (that pick up on kinetic energy along the way; so the farther they travel, the harder they hit); an electromagnetic pulse generator; and a defensive energy shield that can be extended up to 360 degrees. Other capabilities include: generating ultra-freon (i.e., a freeze-beam); creating and manipulating magnetic fields; emitting sonic blasts; and projecting 3-dimensional holograms (to create decoys).

In addition to the general-purpose model he wears, Stark has developed several specialized suits for space travel, deep-sea diving, stealth, and other special purposes. Stark has modified suits, like the Hulkbuster heavy armor. The Hulkbuster armor is composed of add-ons to his so-called modular armor, designed to enhance its strength and durability enough to engage the Incredible Hulk in a fight. A later model, designed for use against Thor, is modeled on the Destroyer and uses a mystical power source. Stark also develops an electronics pack during the Armor Wars that, when attached to armors that use Stark technologies, will burn out those components, rendering the suit useless. This pack is ineffective on later models, however. While it is typically associated with James Rhodes, the War Machine armor also began as one of Stark's specialty armors.

The most recent models of Stark's armor, beginning with the Extremis Armor, are now stored in the hollow portions of Stark's bones, and the personal area networking implement used to control it is implanted in his forearm, and connected directly to his central nervous system, making Stark essentially a cyborg.

Last Chance Deathwatch Contest Reminder

2011-08-19T09:29:00.002-04:00

Since I'm a co-author on another blog, the Minions of the Monster Master, I try not to double up subject matter with my posts here. However there is a Deathwatch contest going on over there currently that is over tomorrow night so I thought I'd mention it to get the word out.

Also, since I'll probably end up being the one to do the painting for the prize, it's fitting to mention here as well since you'll probably see it eventually come across the feed at Mik's Minis in one fashion or another.

"So what's the prize Mik?" It's a Deathwatch Space Marine, painted up with whatever chapter livery you want and whichever of the three specialties you choose; Librarian, Devastator, or Assault marine.

The fine print is all over at the Minions blog. In truth, not a lot of people have entered so it could come down to a coin toss in the end for you!

Check it out before it's too late!

LEGO Thursday: Party On!

2011-08-18T18:16:00.003-04:00

This one's an old file indeed. These were going to go out on invitations printed up for a party. We ended up just calling people on the phone, but I think this would've been cool to get in the mail as a postcard. So, umm, party on!

Hover Tank Alternatives

2011-08-17T19:03:00.005-04:00

I've been picking these up at the store one or two at a time over the last couple of months. As you can see from the packaging, they're from the new Tron movie (which I still haven't seen). It was one of those things where I was standing in the toy aisle and thought to myself, "Self, these would make pretty good 15mm hover tanks."

Maybe third party tank turrets on the flat spots up top?

Comparison shots with some GZG Kra'vak (some excellent ones here)

They come apart easily enough as you can see. The bottom part is plastic, so I'll be able to drill a hole and use a clear flying stem. The top part is die-cast, which I'll just prime over the top of. For the 'windows' I may just leave them alone since they're an opaque smoke.

I've got a color scheme in mind, something of a large, blocky woodland camo scheme, but with geometric shapes. Something like this Lambo, but in greens. Of course I have a 15mm sci-fi army, and they're not green so this means these will have to belong to another entity altogether. That reminds me, I need to do a muster post of that army.

Card Gaming

2011-08-16T23:27:00.002-04:00

So I've been meaning to post something about Race for the Galaxy. I finally got my own copy for Father's Day a while back, but it's still been on the back shelf. It's a great game, it's got tons of depth, plenty of mechanics, a rich theme and atmosphere, and although it seems at first glance crazy complicated, it turns out after a play-through it's a cakewalk.

Thunderstone I've mentioned a time or two before already, but I did get another expansion for my birthday a couple of weeks ago. I ordered Doomgate Legion off of Amazon, but oddly enough they sent me Thornwood Siege instead, though the receipt clearly said Doomgate. Me being impatient however I just kept it and moved on.

I can personally make any game a 'beer and pretzels' game, but of the two titles here, Thunderstone is far and away the winner in the 'laid back and throw down some cards' with your buddies game. It's accessible across the board, easy to pick, and even non-gamers get it.

Race for the Galaxy on the other hand is a lot more technical, a lot more cerebral, offers lots of options to win but only if you know what you're doing. You can sit back and just throw down cards with your buddies, no problem, but the game won't be all that fun in the long run and all the tactical finesse the game has under the hood will be wasted.

Comparing the two games isn't fair, they're two totally different animals. Given that, they both should have spots on the shelf for many of the reasons they do share. Easy to set up and take down, easy to introduce to new players, fun in their own rights, and two genres are wonderfully covered in both sci-fi and high fantasy.

Strangeness at the Rangeness

2011-08-15T23:35:00.003-04:00

Psychic marshmallow / warthog hybrids walk among us!

Targets of the Ezavax Brothers; left behind by MIB agents

Brécourt Manor Assault

2011-08-14T23:22:00.001-04:00

The Brécourt Manor Assault (June 6, 1944) during the U.S. parachute assault of the Normandy Invasion of World War II is often cited as a classic example of small-unit tactics and leadership in overcoming a larger enemy force. -Wikipedia

We played some WWII gaming the other night, this time withe the playtest rules of the forthcoming Fireball Forward. These aren't designed as a Flames of War "killer" or even as competition, but just as another way to game in that era. From their site they sum up the goal of these rules, "Fun World War Two company-level wargaming rules that are short on charts, rules and brain-pain but are long on tactics." Sounds good to me.

My buddy, Little Lead Heroes' Andy, set up the game for the scenario itself (Brecourt Manor). You can see better pics of the table there. Having gamed a lot of Flames of War with these guys I was in for a shock when I saw a tiny 2x3 table and only a handful of stands per side. Normally our FoW games encompass a twelve foot table with dozens and dozens of elements per side.

The gameplay was fast and even though I haven't played before I still felt I had a better grasp on the rules than in a game of FoW, mainly because a lot less was happening on the tabletop. The big draw for me is that the rules are set up to be largely scenario based, with linked "adventures" possibly being the norm down the road.

This particular scenario is excellently portrayed in the series Band of Brothers, you can watch the clip here, and it was a lot of fun to play it out on the tabletop. Watching the clip beforehand might've been helpful actually. In the show the Allied forces won the day, it played out quite differently on the tabletop however with Axis forces winning handedly in both games.

We were able to finish up rather quickly, switch sides, then play the same scenario again. In fact, we were able to finish the second game up so quickly we broke out Dominion and played a game or two of that as well. The rules received mixed reviews from our local group. Sometimes I'm having fun just hanging out, rolling dice, pushing around toy soldiers, and the like so I didn't get into the lengthy post-game discussions about it.

Gastroc Amok!

2011-08-13T19:20:00.000-04:00

All right, the tennis season is over for me. Prematurely. I had a "big match" set up for Friday evening a week or two ago. What do you do to get better? You practice.

So the Monday before the match I was playing a practice match, it was hot, like one hundred degrees hot. It was humid, like, 90% humid.

So there I was, back, on the ad-court side. A well placed passing shot was hit diagonally cross court. It would've been hard to get to, but a little hustle would do the trick. As soon as I took off, I felt a "pop" dead center in the middle of my calf muscle. My leg gave out and I hit the court. Of course it's embarrassing because everyone within a court or two comes rushing over to make sure I'm not dead.

After a minute or two lying on the 150° court surface I tried to stand and couldn't put any weight on it. I chilled on the sideline for a while, in a lot of pain, but thinking I just had a bad cramp or something. After about an hour however I knew something was wrong and a trip the emergency room was in order.

So after a follow-up visit to a sports orthopedic doctor it turns out I had a "partial tear in my medial gastroc". Sounds impressive, but apparently no big deal. The big deal however is that if it tears anymore, it means surgery.

Consulting the diagram to the left you can see the smaller of the two calf muscles, the Medial Gastrocnemius. See where it meets the white Achilles Tendon? That's where my tear is. If it tears the rest of the way, the tendon and muscle separate entirely and that's not good.

So for the next 4-12 weeks I have this huge, immobilizing power-armored moon-boot that prevents my ankle from any motion. It's quite awkward actually.

The main reason I've been playing tennis these last few months is to get exercise. As you can see from the photo (a sad commentary when you're taking a photo of yourself in the ER because you know you're eventually going to blog about it) I don't have abs of steel, but I can't help but think that if I had just stayed home that night, laying on the couch, enjoying a beverage, and watching television this wouldn't have happened.

Mind you, with that plan of action I'd just be in the ER with a heart attack ten years from now.

Cap Back Atcha

2011-08-12T22:44:00.004-04:00

Two Caps for today, coupled with my movie review last month and you'd think I've gone cap-crazy. Not really, it's all coincidence. We (my daughter and I) needed a better representation of the first Avenger than what I had shown the other day.

I found the Marvel Universe version (the official and most excellent figure line of all the supes) online for a reasonable price but didn't want to wait. We found the above fig at the store, and although he's from the movie line of toys it doesn't matter, we open our packages 'round these parts.

There were about six Caps to choose from; WWII Cap, Arctic Cap, Comic version of Cap (with metallic pants?), Night Stealth Cap, Break-dancing Cap, and so on. We opted for "heavy artillery" Cap, basically because he looks normal once you ignore all the spring-loaded nonsense that came in the package with him. Plus, his shield is pretty normal, which apparently is a big criteria.

As for the coffee cup, it was just too cool to pass up. I found it for three bucks at a discount clothing store in the back with the other assorted and random kitchen stuff. I also got a ceramic, multi-colored fish you use to put dirty spoons and the like on while cooking. I thought that might've been pushing it too far to include here however.

LEGO Thursday: King Leo's Castle

2011-08-11T06:16:00.005-04:00

The good thing about being an adult fan of LEGO (AFOL) is that you get people's leftovers when they move on from the hobby. It's a shame, why would anyone move on? But move on they do, and it's up to the AFOL to actively seek out signs of LEGO abandonment and take custody of these wayward sets before they end up in a garage sale!

I'm fortunate enough to have had a lot of friends and family pass along LEGO to me. Mainly this is because they know that A) I enjoy it, obviously, and B) they know it will go to a good home and not be cannibalized or turned for a quick profit online.

It seems I mentioned Rucht just the other week during the Thursday feature, and I'm doing so again today. The above set, #6908-1 King Leo's Castle, was released in 2001 and was the 'big set' of the Castle line that series. Thanks to Rucht, he passed it on to me and it's been in good hands since. Judging from the Warmachine books in the background, this has been some time ago!

July Veggie Haul

2011-08-10T22:42:00.002-04:00

Following up on my mutant squash post the other day I thought I'd post a little inventory of the latest haul out of this year's garden. My tomatoes aren't doing very well, I've been having some trouble with my cages.

One of those mutant squashes broke free of its moorings up near the top of the deck. It crashed down, eight pounds times ten feet of falling damage and literally took out one cage, knocking it over and uprooting the tomato plant within.

Everything else is coming along quite well though, I've got plans for the poblano peppers, and it seems that once my 'maters come in (if they do) I've got more than enough for a few more rounds of Mount Doom salsa!

It was a nice feeling when my kitchen sink was filled to the brim with stuff I grew myself. This is really why I garden, I get to try new things, and I get to eat a lot of stuff I didn't have to buy at the store. Look at those bell peppers, they're huge!

If you've been around, you know this isn't just a gaming blog. Having said that I'll see if I can cross the streams however. I've had an idea of taking some of my produce and making some tabletop terrain out of it. Hmm, I don't know if it'll work.

Avengers Assemble!

2011-08-09T22:43:00.003-04:00

There's an Avengers cartoon out there, it's streaming on Netflix and if you haven't checked it out, I suggest you do so. It's solid, it's good. What I'm struck most about is how they have managed to seamlessly modernize these heroes while aligning each character as well the overall story arc with the current catalog of recent Avengers movies.

What's more is that the series is kid friendly, my eight year old and I have enjoyed watching them together. It brought a smile to my face the other day when she said in earnest that she "really needs" a Red Skull figure to be the head bad guy.

The cartoon is good, and it's prompted me to get some action figures to back up all the Avengers talk between firstborn and myself. I've had the Black Panther for some time, as well as the Hulk (though he never got a post). Thor was easy to pick up, and I've got an Iron Man on the way via eBay. I still need to pick up Cap and Hawkeye, but I think I may use the clicker Wasp since she scales perfectly with the rest of the team.

We can't go down a toy aisle without trying on hero gear!

Massive Mutant Squash

2011-08-08T00:40:00.004-04:00

I had no idea what I had when I planted this stuff in the ground. Apparently it wasn't just a squash, but a giant Indian variety of squash from the Kerala region. This plant is probably not even properly registered with customs. You can't make this stuff up.

It's no gourd, that's a lot of edible veggies in there. That's my coffee maker in the background, and you can see the diameter of the squash itself is about that of the bottom of a pot of coffee. The largest of the two had to have weighed at least fifteen pounds. Maybe I just solved world hunger.

I cooked it, ate it raw, fried it, and pretty much whatever else you do with squash. It was decently good, I mean it was squash after all, when the last time you were excited about squash? I was happy with the growing process though, this thing really took off from day one. Here firstborn struggles to heft the mighty squash!

Lego Figs to Jupiter

2011-08-06T10:17:00.001-04:00

Galileo, Juno, and Jupiter himself

This has been all over the news, in both Lego channels and mainstream media but I had to include it here because it's too cool not to pass up. Basically the Juno probe, which just hitched a ride on an Atlas rocket launched yesterday, is carrying along some specially designed 1.5" aluminum Lego figs.

NASA's excellent Juno Mission website is here.

NASA's Jupiter-bound Juno spacecraft will carry the 1.5-inch likeness of Galileo Galilei, the Roman god Jupiter and his wife Juno to Jupiter when the spacecraft launches this Friday, Aug. 5. The inclusion of the three mini-statues, or figurines, is part of a joint outreach and educational program developed as part of the partnership between NASA and the LEGO Group to inspire children to explore science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

In Greek and Roman mythology, Jupiter drew a veil of clouds around himself to hide his mischief. From Mount Olympus, Juno was able to peer through the clouds and reveal Jupiter's true nature. Juno holds a magnifying glass to signify her search for the truth, while her husband holds a lightning bolt. The third LEGO crew member is Galileo Galilei, who made several important discoveries about Jupiter, including the four largest satellites of Jupiter (named the Galilean moons in his honor). Of course, the miniature Galileo has his telescope with him on the journey. -NASA Press Release

Key things to know about the Juno Mission

Spacecraft launched August 5, 2011
Five-year cruise to Jupiter, arriving July 2016
Spacecraft will orbit Jupiter for about one year (33 orbits)
Mission ends with de-orbit into Jupiter

Juno will improve our understanding of our solar system’s beginnings by revealing the origin and evolution of Jupiter.

Specifically, Juno will…

Determine how much water is in Jupiter’s atmosphere, which helps determine which planet formation theory is correct (or if new theories are needed)
Look deep into Jupiter’s atmosphere to measure composition, temperature, cloud motions and other properties
Map Jupiter’s magnetic and gravity fields, revealing the planet’s deep structure
Explore and study Jupiter’s magnetosphere near the planet’s poles, especially the auroras – Jupiter’s northern and southern lights – providing new insights about how the planet’s enormous magnetic force field affects its atmosphere.

LEGO Thursday: The Sheriff of Dinosaur Planet

2011-08-04T18:16:00.004-04:00

Like a sketch book, we get ideas for a game, or a genre, or a scenario, or something. Well a lot of times there are ideas that never make it past the drawing board. This is an example of one of those times. Cowboys, sci-fi, and dinosaurs...it's the perfect combination!

I had to go back to the original file on this one just to check, and it was dated 2004. So it would seem that seven years later dinosaur-hybrid setting are gaining progress. Maybe it's time for me to revisit this particular setting?

Alien Conquest: UFO Abduction #7052

2011-08-03T23:27:00.000-04:00

When Lego came out with their fantasy-themed castle sets a few years back, my enthusiasm shot up greatly. Finally...Orcs and Dwarves, very cool.

When I saw the Alien Conquest line roll out I felt that same elevated enthusiasm. First of all, it's not crazy out there future space stuff, for the most part it's modern day (or near future) Earth with regular citizens.

Mind you, these citizens are being abducted and terrorized by alien invaders! Defending humanity are the soldiers of the ADU, the Alien Defense Unit.

I had collected the UFO space range in the mid-nineties, which were cool, a bit less campy, and a bit more sinister. But the setting alone for the new line edges out those old ships. Speaking of ships, this one was a fun build (and comparatively more solid than its predecessors). It's high-tech enough, but also has details that lend it a sort of retro feel.

Lights on Lego sets are nothing new, but the light element of this set is pretty darn clever. A red light in the canopy of the saucer is focused through a pinhole in the floor of the ship and out through the bottom. Next up are 'claws' or pincers built into the bottom of the ship, when the light passes through these it forms a targeting reticule on the surface below. Perfect for zeroing in on some unsuspecting civilian!

Soft rubber tines grab your victim and hold them fast making it easy to swoop down from the sky and performing a quick human snatch-and-grab. Like I said, the ship had some interesting build techniques but nothing out of the ordinary. The ship is why you get this set, other than the human figs, the other little doo-dads are forgettable.

The barriacades, meh, they've got new stickers I guess. The "flick-fire" mobile missile platform...what a piece of junk. If you flick it hard enough to actually fire the missile you'll be sending the whole unit across the room. I would've much rather seen a third human figure (civilian or ADU) thrown in here and leave out the extras altogether. The farmer and his pitchfork were a nice touch.

You get a couple of cool pistols, the new bi-barreled ADU pistol and the gyro-jet pistol that came out recently with the collectible series of mini-figs. You also get an alien pilot, which is cool if you're into the figs with molded heads, but he's a good one, not too goofy, not too serious. Finally is the ADU fig, which is pretty standard except for the head, which makes him the grizzled veteran "old man" of the ADU, complete with huge, Miyazaki styled 'stache.

All in all, this is a set worth picking up. I don't do scales a lot but I'd give it 8.5 out of 10 stars. You'll like it, you get cool figs and a solid model with the saucer. The light mechanic is neat, but the build itself doesn't offer anything new. I think the junk pieces like the barricades and missile launcher (instead of a fourth fig) hold it back just a bit.

Lone Drantakh

2011-08-01T10:10:00.000-04:00

This is one of those figures that has been sitting around for a while, Regiment Games' alien Drantakh, an excellent Bob Olley sculpt. They ran an "adopt a Drantakh" promotion a few years back, basically you got a single, free alien...no strings attached.

This was a nice figure to paint, and although my queue hasn't been that strenuous, I painted this one as a sort of break from the other stuff. For this reason I went with bright colors and tried to just have fun. He's the only one I have, and there wasn't any particular game I've got in mind, so he just kind of is. I went with a snow base to really make his bright colors stand out, and I've always been a fan of primary colored guns, so his is blue. Enjoy!

A Festive Mikmas to You

2011-07-30T09:58:00.000-04:00

It's very hard to believe that a year ago today I was posting news that we were going to have a new baby, and that it was my birthday to boot. Well that grape-sized, in utero critter from the ultrasound is now a six month old healthy boy, and me, your thirty six year old host, is now a thirty seven year old host.

As you can see from the birthday loot pile above, the girls know me pretty well. More on the UFO Abduction set later, having already built it though I must say it's pretty cool. As for L.A.Noire, I was pleasantly surprised especially since I hadn't even hinted towards it.

EDIT: Ironically enough, I'm not the only adult out there gaming, painting Space Marines, and getting cool Lego sets for their birthdays from the family, ahem, Sons of Twilight.

Chaos Pact; Small, Medium, and Large

2011-07-29T09:12:00.002-04:00

I finished up some of my non-human players on the Blood Gryphons. They seem pretty glossy because I haven't Dull Coted them yet, the weather in my neck of the woods has been about ninety-five degrees every day with about 90% humidity...not good sealing weather. Since my Blood Bowl figs see the most (and roughest) action, I really varnish them down to protect them. Once the Dull Cote goes on they're good to go.

Slab Crag-Iron, my Chaos Ogre; Ogre Kingdoms parts

Lomnis Spannerback, Goblin troublemaker with a one strength

Critt Hakk'ck, Skaven with the (bone) claw mutation

LEGO Thursday: Zombpocalypse Survivors

2011-07-28T18:16:00.005-04:00

Not all roleplaying adventuring parties are fantasy based. We ran a short-live (no pun intended) but incredibly fun Zombpocalypse game using the d20 Modern rules some time ago.

Our GM, Rucht, threw some interesting curve-balls in on us and turned what we thought was a run-of-the-mill zombie romp into something a bit more creative.

I believe we all ended up on a boat, marooned at sea, unaware that the zombies were approaching us underwater. Like I said, lots of fun, and any game where the GM has you make a back-up character at the same time as your regular character you know things are going to be rough!

My first character, a thuggish, street-wise hooligan is on the left here. He was eaten by zombies fairly quickly. In the middle we have the local preacher, armed with a buzz saw and revolver, he was a zombie-whacking machine. Speaking of whacking, on the right was a local professional baseball player armed with his bat. He could also throw baseballs with deadly accuracy. A rag-tag bunch of survivors indeed.

Mail Call

2011-07-26T23:25:00.003-04:00

Yesterday's mailbox venture yielded more than bills and spam fliers for new roofing contractors, it yielded free geek stuff. Plus the two items cover the two main genres of my gaming world, tabletop minis and roleplaying games.

First up is issue number one of Loviatar, a 'zine dedicated to fleshing out an urban fantasy setting. To boot it's set loosely in the Forgotten Realms for those franchise-inclined but can easily be ported to a homebrew setting. It's also neat because it takes me back twenty years to the indie-published days full of these types of endeavors. Head over there now and get a subscription, you won't be disappointed.

Speaking of places you need to head over to Land War in Asia, this blog never disappoints in the batrep department, beautifully done tables and armies, and a scope of genres across the board. His content is consistently solid and always a good read. Recently Donogh held a reader contest, and I won two excellently painted mounted cavalrymen from Dixon's American Civil War range.