Fjord Serpents - Karvi

   As a general rule I'm avoiding buying games on Kickstarter* as for the price a lot of them go for makes buying them blind and without knowing it is definitely being posted to you just seems too big a risk. However, when I saw the Fjord Serpents game on Kickstarter a few years back, I was in before I'd even thought about it. This became one of those Kickstarters that I was fairly sure wasn't going to deliver once the manufacturer they had lined up couldn't meant the quality they wanted for the price and they had to start looking elsewhere. I'm fairly sure the ships and figures were supposed to be plastic with resin hulls but I might be wrong, while what we got were resin hulls with 3d printed parts and crew.

*which means I've missed some amazing games that then haven't gone to retail

   For me the Dark Ages, or Early Medieval period as it should now be called, is just the most fascinating part of history and something I am always drawn back to, and a Viking longship game just had to be bought.

   Then when the backer kit came out and the rules were made a bit more open, it became fairly obvious that a "standard" game would be about 3 to 4 ships, I looked to add another pair so I can have two fleets of 3, before realising that those two ships cost more than just buying a second starter set - with the only loss by doing this of not having a the varied prows that come in the single ship sets.

   It's the crew that have completely blown my mind. As the warfare is basically land warfare but on water, with the crew doing the fighting in shieldwalls and not the ships (like in Napoleonic naval warfare for example), I knew I'd be painting some, but each box comes with 322 figures (on stands of 3-4), this might take some time. I've decided to give the crew more of a gist of a paint job rather than spending loads of time, I've based in brown, highlighted in brown then done quick layers in a limited palette with the idea being they look about right as long as you don't look too closely. This is going to be a long project.

   This test ship is a Karvi, the smallest war ship in the game, which has 32 crew. I've gone for the plain red sail you see in a lot of art online, but I plan to vary sails in the future.

Thanks for reading

Elderwood Spellbook

      I have backed a handful* of Kickstarters in the last year or so and its always exciting to get that email telling that something you order X ago has just been posted, most of which you have quietly forgotten about. But the Spellbooks by Elderwood Academy was not one of those Kickstarters, every few weeks I have been going back through my Kickstarter feed to reread the last update they sent out for any clue as to where mine was and getting excited every time I had a message with Kickstarter in the title in my email inbox.
     Then I got the message. My book had been posted. A long, long week, a customs slip through the door and a trip to the post office later and here it is.

*Ok, a big handful.

      The book and it's interior. Everything was customisable, so this one is: Dark amber leather, cherry wood with mahogany trim, a brass reflecting pool, burgundy felt and a gold sun design. 

       The spellbook with the shrunken goblin head I bought a while back. 

       This was one of those purchases where I looked at the price, the postage and added on the expected customs charges and really wasn't sure I needed a wooden book to store gaming stuff in, and then went back to look at the pictures and realised, that yes, yes I did. I only stumbled across this project when I was chatting to one of the guys I play D&D with and we described something so painfully similar to this that I figured it had to already exist somewhere and I found the promotional build up about a week before it went live and I am glad I did.

Now I just need to get the use out of it to prove it was actually worth it . . .

Thanks for reading

Odds and Sods

     After another long, and particularly busy, week at work, the best thing to do on the weekend is to clear out your man cave (and the dreaded cupboard which is only held closed by mdf gaming boards leaned on the door) and sort it all out, no wait, that doesn't sound right. But it is what I did. 

     Now with a man cave that has a carpet, or at least carpet I can see again, I can get on with all those weird and wonderful figures that I bought without much of a plan for and put away to do later. This post is all about those.

      Back in 2014 (I think) I got involved in Heresy Miniature's Return of the Monsters Kickstarter to buy a big demon model, but as the kickstarter carried on my pledge level rose and rose, and then when it came time to confirm what the pledges were for I might have added a bit more, and added a little bit more since and just asked for the lot to be sent when the kickstarter was posted. All good and well, but that is 2 years of ideas and projects that I have completely forgotten about or moved on from. I picked up the first chunk of my pledge at Salute and promptly packed it away until I had time, but going through my cupboard means I have pulled out some of the models I really wanted to paint and the Cyclops above is one of those.
       The Cyclops is one hell of a sculpt, he was one of the most enjoyable figures I have painted in a long time. There was a lot of gunk on the model (I assume this was the stuff that stops the model getting stuck in the mould) but once he was cleaned up, the casting was crisp and beautiful. Nothing on this model was anything more than a base, wash and highlight and I am really pleased with the result. I just have no idea why I bought him.

       The priest was just an extra Andy from Heresy Miniatures threw in to say thanks for the pledge. As I already had one in my Open Combat/Frostgrave collection I decided to add it to my only other suitable army, my Lion Rampant force. I'm not entirely sure what to do with him in that force but he'll fit in somewhere.

       The Frostgrave Templar was, again, a free figure for backing last year's Nickstarter, but as I had painted up a whole load of Frostgrave figures I had run out of steam and had to put the rest away for a while to get my enthusiasm back. While I was painting up my Arthurian troops it dawned on me that I hadn't done anyone in my Frostgrave collection in anything like their colour scheme and this model seemed to fit the bill.

       Another model from the Heresy Kickstarter, this one was for my Frostgrave collection and, again, one of the model enjoyable models I have painted for a long time. Something about the way Andy casts just gives great figures to paint, it's just the building of some of them that is daunting.

        This is an old GW Dwarvish Troll Slayer that I started to paint probably 10 years ago (no idea where the rest of his unit went). All I have done is tidy him up and change his base, reckon he will end up in Frostgrave but I'm not all that sure.

      I think this is an old GW skeleton but I'm really not sure, I remember this guy floating around my bits box since my first trip to Salute in the early 2000's I think. He's finally been pulled out, given a shiny new shield and will be added to my undead force that went on the back burner but I keep meaning to add to.

      Last but not least, a Reaper Miniatures skeleton jester that was bought last summer as part of a big Reaper order with one of my mates. This guy has been sat on the corner of my painting desk since then, surviving every desk clear up but never getting any further than being sprayed black. 

Time to get back to my real projects again I think.

Thanks for reading

Gaming mats

     It's been another couple of weeks with very little hobby to put to my name, a mix of extra hours at work and spending time trying to bond a newly adopted rabbit to our current pair, but that doesn't mean I haven't got anything done.

     A couple of months back I backed a gaming mat kickstarter from a company called Ceri Designs. The guy behind it wanted to make great quality, versatile, but most importantly, affordable, cloth mats and as I have been on the verge of buying some mats for a while, I took the plunge, backing it for 2 of the 3x3 mats. First things first, this is the first kickstarter that I have backed that has delivered on time, that definitely deserves a mention, secondly, much as he has taken a bit of slack for the designs being fairly modular (you'll see that on my second mat) it's not something that I am overly worried about, the actual printing quality is really good and if his claims are anything to go by these things are wash proof and game proof, I'm not sure you can go too far wrong. These are definitely some of the better quality mats I have ever seen, so I am looking forward to seeing them in bigger sizes next.

     The first mat I picked was a modern urban one, I have a slowly growing collection of urban buildings that I am building and painting/spraying as and when I get enough time, my lead mountain now includes a secondary mdf peak. The mat itself is a simple crossroads, which is the basic layout I generally prefer, you can make sure both sides have a fair game, but can block off roads to get rid of lanes of fire if you want.

       The second mat I got was the basic flagstones mat that every gaming mat company has to have on their books. I picked the most basic one in the range, simply because I felt I could get more use out of a basic one used well than shoehorn a more specific mat into other uses. I can definitely see this being used for small games of VBCW, Frostgrave, Open Combat and maybe even Lion's/Dragon's Rampant.

Thanks for reading

*Edited* - The website is now live; http://www.ceridesign.xyz/

Mason's Guild for Guildball

     The second team I bought as part of my Guildball kickstarter pledge was the Mason's guild, unlike the Fisherman's guild that had been partially sculpted at the time and they had a solid idea of what each player was going to look like, the Mason's were a shot in the dark. The one model they had sculpted, however, was the team captain, and I have to say I went for this team almost purely on the strength of that single sculpt.

     The masons guild's style of play, doesn't rely on overwhelming strength, or speed, or defense, but in having a team who are in sync with each, they each have skills that increase the stats or another specific player, so when your team is fresh they are spectacular, but as you lose players, your team quickly becomes sub standard.

The full team

 Honour and Marbles

 Brick and Mallet

 Harmony and Flint

 Another goal and ball.

      I still have the two union team players I got free as part of my pledge, only held up by the fact I genuinely don't know how one of them is supposed to be stuck to the base, true story. Then I need to get a game or two in at some point.
     Oh and the guys who are behind guildball are going to be at Salute tomorrow, with a ltd edition version of Kraken (see last post) and an extra player for each team . . .

I hope to see as many of you as I can at Salute tomorrow.

Fishermen's Guild for Guildball

      I know the posts have been thick as fast in the build up to Salute but the process of clearing my desk is starting to achieve a result. 

      Guildball was a kickstarter I got into last summer and last Saturday it finally arrived in the post. Guildball is a fantasy football game designed to be played on a 3 by 3 pitch, but unlike any other fantasy football game I have seen, it has no grid and allows scenery, so it can be played in the middle of a town, or in a proper field. The teams are formed from the mercantile guilds of the country the game is set in rather than the normal different races idea that other games tend to use, which means stat wise most players are fairly similar, but somehow because each team focuses on a different style of play, each team plays in a completely different way. The game also has two different ways of winning, a normal game is played until one side hits 8 or 12 points, depending on how big a game you are playing, points can be earned either by taking out the opponent's players ( 2 points a player) or by scoring goals (4 points a goal).

     The kickstarter reward I went in for was the whole game set up and two teams, the plan being I all I would need was a second person willing to learn the game and I would everything I needed to play from the get go. The two teams I picked were the Fisherman's guild and the Mason's guild, I'll talk about the Masons more when I get them painted up.

     The Fishermen's style of play is all about scoring goals by being fast and dodging out of combat, rather than actively taking opponents players out. The fishermen are just about the only team who could quite possibly score multiple times in a single turn if the game goes their way. Most of them have long weapons so they can avoid being locked in close combat and none of them have particularity good armour, so really can't afford to let their opponent's grind them down.

 The basic team, plus mascot, goal and ball.

 Shark - Team Captain & Salt - Team Mascot

Kraken & Greyscales

 Angel & Siren

 Ball and goal

 Rule book, tokens, dice and templates.

      If you are heading to Salute I recommend having a look at the Guildball demo game and especially the figures, I have played the demo once and absolutely loved it. Now, back to painting, hopefully I can get the Mason's done before Salute, then I can concentrate on getting some games in once I get back.

Thanks for reading

Return of the monsters!

    So I was minding my own business and getting on with my work when, Bam!, a tweet by Andy from Heresy Miniatures came up on my phone and it was about his new kickstarter. What's this, I thought. A kickstarter designed to bring back all his old monsters, oh and a couple of his big old winged demons? Hmmm.
     At least it's easy to resist something like th . . . Damn, that didn't work. I'm now pledged for the Azaroth figure in lovely resin, so hopefully by February I will be showing off my new monster. I have a rough plan to drill his clenched hand, put a length of doubled up chain in it and use it as a generic big demon or as a bloodthirster greater demon for Warhammer 40k.



    Here is the link for the kickstarter in case any of this interests you;
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/heresyminiatures/return-of-the-monsters

Normal service will resume once I actually manage to paint something . . .