The end of eternal January

 

Well, I'm done with January. And also January is over. I had a pretty productive hobby month, finishing up a few models that have been on my paint table for a good while. This Lyran lance means I've definitely got enough models to try Battletech when I'm inspired to.

I am a little behind on "buy less than I paint" right now, down to a Made to Order box of Blood Bowl Halflings and Blue Giant Studios ending a few product lines. But six painted, twelve bought isn't too catastrophic, and is easily recoverable. If I can finish Agent Dukash and the goblins I've had on and off my desk for a whole age, I'll be back to neutral.

Getting back into painting Infinity was pretty darned great. Getting Oktavia painted and playing a game with her was a really positive vibe. There's a small amount of stress to be painting miniatures that I'm likely to use soon, which I'm not liking and will likely avoid in future. I've got an Infinity tournament next weekend that I'm currently planning on playing Combined Army at. I'm starting to consider shifting to playing one of my mercenary factions for a while until I've got the core of Combined Army painted up to take the pressure off.

I also managed in the last week to get another quick pass of undercoating done. The Anathematic, Rindak and Dartok are now ready for painting. I'm not sure what I'm going to pick up and paint next - I'm thinking I want to get a bit of volume painted, so I really need to go with what's enthusing me in the moment.

I also got back to HATE at its new venue, which I really like. It's a little harder for me to get to and needs a little more planning to reach. But I've had a couple of games there now, and I'm looking forward to more. I've also missed being able to get food at the venue, and have appreciated being able to get dinner there.

The Old World campaign day was also a great success. It confirmed to me that I like the Old World game, and that the effort to put my miniatures together and paint them won't be a waste. I'm not going to be doing quite as many events this year, but this and the upcoming Infinity tournament in February is a nice start to the year while I have the time.

Old World Campaign Day - Game 2, Dungeon Delve

 

Casting back to the Warhammer Old World campaign day, the second round was a dungeon delve, as the heroes searched for vampires as they slept to try and destroy them. I was one of the GMs, running the monsters from a the random tables our event organiser had written for us.

There were a bunch of effects that turned up, like having a trooper wandering off alone, or having someone jumped by the vampire once their coffin had been discovered. It was a pretty rough scenario that was hard for the heroes to win.

A bat swarm, in particular, was a really rough opponent for the players, especially as extra zombies kept turning up while they were held up. In the end, the players managed to find the vampire's lair, but their heroes were wounded enough and their warband had lost enough troops that they weren't able to over-come him, and the vampire was able to slay his pursuers.

As the event organiser totted up the number of Imperial heroes and vampires slain, we moved on to the third game of the day - the large finale battles...

Infinity N5 Slow Grow League Battle Report - Shasvastii vs Operations Subsection

 

To get folk going with N5 at the club, our Warcor is organising a narrative slow grow league. I'm running Shasvastii after I threw a list together to help me decide which faction to play and fell in love with it. My faction assigned me to the mission "Domination", facing ALEPH's Operations Subsection.

I went with a Mentor as a reliable Lieutenant. The Med-Tech and Ikadron were my "support package" with a Q Drone for defence. Trying a new link team, I took a Nox, Oktavia and Aida Swanson. Oktavia has had a major glow up this edition and it earned her a new paint job. Finally, I grabbed a Shrouded Minelayer and Malignos Hacker for midfield control, and a Taigha as a throwaway warband and solving problems that throwaway warbands solve.

I had the first turn and was super cautious about getting into a gunfight with the ALEPH gun fighters, so sent the Malignos out to flip a console. I ducked it into a quiet spot and went back into camouflage to avoid the spectacular number of hackers I was facing.

The Q Drone (discount, Thunderbolt version) headed up into the centre board to try and cost my opponent a few orders in her first turn. It lightly bullied a Deva hacker who managed to dodge out of sight.

The Taigha went for the Apsara hacker with a Berserk attack, but absolutely stuffed it and was shot down with a shotgun on its way in.

A Dakini HMG had a go at taking out the Thunderbolt, but got unlucky. Trisha N33 managed to Gizmokit the Dakini back up again, formed a link team with another Dakini and the Deva . . . shot again . . . and got taken out a second time. Ooof. This was a particularly unlucky chain of events that was a pretty hefty order drain.

I spent my turn bringing my Shrouded Minelayer up to try and take on some of the advanced pieces, but didn't get much success. I then brought the link team up, and Oktavia absolutely ashed poor Trisha with the rocket launcher, before heading up into the midfield to try and strengthen my scoring.

At this point, the ALEPH firepower I'd been so worried about started showing its strength. The proxy HMG (out of shot) simply exploded my Q drone without breaking a sweat.

The Apsara then worked around past my Malignos, who I had no intention of revealing in my reactive turn. She then snuck through the gap left by the Q drone, shot the Shrouded in the back (who miraculously survived but then failed guts into a horrifically exposed position), and melted the Nox hacker, breaking the fireteam apart.

The Med-Tech got the Q drone back online, but Aida was pinned down by the Proxy HMG, and I didn't fancy my odds on getting rid of it with the Q drone. Oktavia worked her way around the left of the barrier to engage the Apsara and was able to take it out.

In an effort to clear the opposition, I ran Oktavia forward and she got into a fight with three separate models. Most were fine, but I was able to take out the Operations Subsection lieutenant, meaning that my opponent now had to think very hard about how to spend her orders in her final turn.

As it was, she did a pretty good job! She was able to to clear the Shrouded, put Oktavia dogged, and then dive for the button with her Proxy doctor on the last order - sadly failing the WIP roll and being taken out by Oktavia moments before Oktavia passed out.

The mission ended with a 7-3 score in favour of the Shasvastii, but it was pretty close - if the doctor had survived, it would have moved to 6-4, and if the WIP roll had passed, it would have been 6-5... It was a fun game, and I spent most of it really scared of the ALEPH firepower. In many cases, I was being saved by the Shasvastii being difficult to hit, and if they'd been just a little less lucky they'd have evaporated completely.

A pilot, a rogue, some unexpected weather and behind the scenes footage

 

I managed to get Oktavia Grimsdottir finished up for my first game at the club slow grow. She's a human pilot who works for Aida Swanson the Shasvastii smuggler. It was a little bit of a challenge to come up with colours that fitted my Shasvastii scheme, but by painting her jacket the colour I use for their tech, and her hair the colour I use for their guns, there's enough visual clues to tie her in.

I also finished the elf rogue by Strata Miniatures. This is from their "Dungeons and Diversity" range of a bunch of traditional fantasy heroes in wheelchairs. If you want to run a character in a wheelchair, there's homebrew rules available for a combat wheelchair for D&D, while Pathfinder 2e remastered has equipment rules for wheelchairs in the Player Core book.

I will need to get a bit of a shuffle on with painting. Blue Giant Studios was ending a few lines of minis and having a sale, which meant a few bits and pieces of those turned up. I also ordered the Blood Bowl "Made to Order" Halflings, which turned up within a week rather than 180 days later, which is inconvenient for getting ahead of my painting numbers. With the "Made to Order" for the Empire Wagon just announced, I'm looking a little nervously at the paint desk.

While Storm Eowyn meant I was mostly expecting the weather to be absolutely awful, I woke up Sunday to calm, sunny skies, and rushed to find everything I've been putting off undercoating over the winter. This was definitely the right move as it turned absolutely miserable on the Sunday, and I'd have got nothing done.

Two Daturazi Witch Soldiers and Bit and Kiss now have their zenithal finished and are ready to paint. These are pretty staple picks for Vanilla Combined Army, especially the Daturazi. They're not going straight onto the paint table just yet, as I've got a tournament in early February. I use contrast a lot in my Combined scheme, and I worry about it rubbing off if I take a half finished model that hasn't been varnished to a game...

Meanwhile, I've also finished fishing out an assortment of minis I've painted over the past few years to use for Frostgrave, written a list and picked my wizards spells. That will be a future blog post, and while I was taking photos of this week's completed miniatures, I took a few glamour shots of them too. I still want to play with my lighting set up a little more - I'm not 100% happy with it - but I do feel that my miniature photography has been improving of late.

Old World Campaign Day - The First Battle

 

The other weekend, I attended an Old World campaign day organised by a member of our club, who was kind enough to loan me his Vampire Counts army to play. The theme of the campaign was Empire against Vampire Counts.

The theme of my force as a whole was an unstable vampire, Stefan Ayken van Warten, and his family and sworn retinue. The Necromancer, Cedric Thistledown, was my "point of view" character, a cowardly illusionist con artist who'd fled his university ahead of the witch hunters when his powers were discovered. Running afoul of the Vampires, he'd been able to trick them that he was a powerful wandering necromancer with his illusions. Put in charge of a host of zombies, he discovered that provided he was "deathly" hungover, they mistook him as one of their own and didn't eat him.

The first battle represented the forces of the vampires coming through a mountain pass into the lands of the Empire. We were bringing smaller forces, so for my side, Cedric had been sent to mind an idiot cousin vampire in the vanguard, while we faced some troops from Talabecland and a "mercenary" force. (Who in turn had some mercenary ogres who proceeded to fail to show up.)

The allies of my undead were . . . some Bretonnians? Their lord did look a little, umm, glassy eyed? It seemed that his wife had a bit more influence than one might expect. As the players, we agreed that the undead would keep the Bretonnians at an arms length so as not to risk the glamour they were under, so we gave the Bretonnians the left flank and the vampires the right.

The undead advanced, and in turn, the Empire advanced their landship and a unit of Knights of the Blazing Sun to threaten charges next turn. Meanwhile on the left flank, the Bretonnians and Talabecland troops were heavily engaged.

The Cairn Wraith charged the Landship, which failed it's Terror check and fled. The illusionist managed to create an illusionary pillar in front of the Knights of the Blazing Sun, blocking their charge.

Fully over-confident now, I charged the Cairn Wraith and some bat swarms into the Knights of the Blazing Sun. They held their ground, easily cut down the bats, and their victory there weakened the grasp the Cairn Wraith had on the world, banishing it.

The ghosts phased through the house to get out of the way of the knights, while the rest of the forces swung left to avoid them.

The vampire had gotten himself charged by some state troops, so the zombies and ghosts planned to charge the flank. He cut down a unit champion before offering a challenge to the Empire general.

Meanwhile the witch hunter associated with the mercenaries had gotten caught up with dealing with some brigands and was quite far back from the main fight, though his holy flames were really putting paid to my ghosts...

The zombies and ghosts charged in, and the fight tipped in favour of the undead. The vampire and the Empire general had a nail biting back and forth fight, with the vampire injured before cutting down the general. The left flank of the Empire had been thoroughly chewed through by the Bretonnians, leaving the field in the hands of the undead and their allies.

This was my first game of the Old World, and I had a lot of fun. There's plenty to learn and I need to get my own force put together. There's a couple of games still to come I'll write up in turn, but for now, it seems, the Empire is in danger...

Weird little jobs and weird little miniatures

 

It's been a busy week, but I did manage to finish re-undercoating the base on this Rasyat with Boarding Shotgun so it's ready for paint. I'm rushing to try and complete Oktavia Grimsdottir for my Shasvastii so I can use her in a game, but it's going to be close...

I had a little store credit with Bad Squiddo Games, so picked up a couple of sculpts as I was ahead on painting having finished the Lyran Battlemech lance this month. Old Man Shroom is an interesting weird little sculpt that can be a good Pathfinder NPC. Meanwhile the other sculpt is a Kasa-Obake, a spirit possessing an old umbrella from Japanese folklore. I grabbed this because this is a valid PC option in Pathfinder from the recent Tian Xia Player's Guide, and I couldn't not.

Upon purchasing miniatures, I was immediately struck down for my hubris by the arrival of more miniatures. From Bad Squiddo. In my defence, these are Community Miniatures Project minis from last year. These are the last of the "catch up" minis, so the project will be re-launching shortly. As it is, I have two pirates and an angry lady with pigeons who will all happily turn into fantasy NPCs without any work on my part whatsoever.

I've been continuing my clear out, and sorted through all my cases for miniatures I no longer need. I pulled out all the ad hoc ones for listing on eBay, but kept back these two Servitors with Heavy Bolters, as they're going to fit nicely into my Imperial Agents army along with all the random Inquisition stuff I already own...

The other half of the case trawling exercise was pulling out miniatures I can use for Frostgrave, so here's the starting candidates. I need to dig out the rules for what soldiers have what weapons and how many points / gold my warband is so I can have a shuffle through some builds / work out how many of my favouritest models in the world that I've painted I can fit into a single warband...

Infinity N5: First Game, Combined Army vs Hassassin Bahram - Frontline

 

On Sunday, I headed up to HATE (Hackney Area Tabletop Enthusiasts) at our new venue - Karamel in Wood Green. It has a café, and they were doing Sunday dinners. I ordered the pie and when it came I couldn't see the pie because there was so much food piled up on top of it!

I was playing our local Warcor, Yashar, who is running Hassassin Bahram for the start of N5. I brought Vanilla Combined Army, with an Anathematic Hacker and Charontid MSV3 HMG. Yashar is running through various different profiles, so was running a Haris led by a Lasiq and a Shakush TAG. The mission was Frontline because I didn't want too much thinking.

I managed to fail my WIP roll, so the Hassassins got to pick deployment. I wasn't willing to risk giving up first turn, which is a little sub optimal in Frontline. The Hassassin reserve drop was an Impersonation marker, though while it worried me, he didn't even reveal to shoot the Imetron he had sight of all game!

I spent the early turn using the Charontid to clear the Daylami, but it ended up taking quite a few orders. The Dartok Hacker managed to absolutely miss both his pitchers, but he'd gain an automatic reload from a nearby Ikadron.

The Shakush came up my right flank and cleared a few of my pieces, before pulling back to a safe spot.

A Haris with a Lasiq Viral Sniper moved up and took out a couple of pieces, but I was able to take a couple out with a Libertos with a Shotgun in reply.

The little penguin (here photographed at the start of the game) is the model being used for the scenario defensive turret. It simply would not die and it took a whole ton of orders to clear.

I brought out my Anathematic in the third turn, and it even took a wound from the blasted penguin turret before it was able to take it out.

I brought the Charontid up to take out a few more models and hold the centre zone, but it was in 0 modifier range and simply couldn't get the job done.

Which meant, in turn, that the Charontid got immobilised, then the Shakush could come up behind it and take it out, leaving the Hassassins firmly in the lead on zone control and firmly winning the game.

While this was a learning game, I was way too cautious with my pieces and never really advanced or pressured the Hassassins, meaning they were free to plan rather than react.

Overall, I'm liking the feel of the new edition, and I'm keen to try a bunch of stuff to see how it works out.

A little paint, Old World Campaign Day, and Infinity N5 Plans

 

I'm writing this before the weekend, because I'm going to be pretty darned busy this weekend... 

The new project on the painting table are some models for the Combined Army and the Shasvastii. There's a T-Drone and an E-Drone (the Missile remote and the EVO remote), and then Agent Dukash and Oktavia Grimsdottir.

I also decided it was time to finish sorting the re-basing of this Rasyat with Boarding Shotgun, who'd been glued to his base the wrong way around. The new base has now had it's texture paste added, and it just needs a black undercoat and a Wraithbone drybrush so it's ready to get painted.

I had a little zone out moment and when I came around here's all the colours I'd got in on Oktavia. There's a few little bits that will need tidying up, and then I plan on doing a little dry brushing to add some texture and drop a few detail highlights in. Then it's just a case of sorting the basing out, and I'll have another model sorted for my Shasvastii. I'm feeling very virtuous and hope I can keep this pace up...

My Saturday is going to be spent engaged in some Old World shenanigans! Some folks from the club are having a narrative campaign day with some Empire forces fighting against some naughty vampire counts, and I've signed up to borrow someone's vampire count army to play for the day. It's in the past when this post comes out, but I won't have had time to write it up yet!

And Sunday, I'm having my first game of Infinity N5! This is just a simple game of Frontline that I'll be taking Vanilla Combined Army to. I'm going to start off with a stereotypical Charontid / Anathematic list to keep it simple. I'm running Shasvastii in the narrative campaign because I have more of them painted, but I want to try the Vanilla lists too.

So yes! A productive bit of painting, but hopefully you'll have a couple of reports of some games coming up soon as well. It's feeling like a good start to the year.