Hobby Update: Undead Goreblights

The last full units I managed to complete in 2020 were a pair of Goreblights for the Undead.

They are probably the unit I was most excited about with the release of 3rd Edition. A monstrous, towering bastion of undeath is a very cool concept! Like many, I went with some Bone Golems from a Pathfinder miniature line. I got mine for under $5, and while the price looks to have since basically doubled for some reason... it still still a pretty good deal. 

Terrible picture; out of the dozen or so shots from start-to-finish, this is literally one of the least blurry or weird. I think I will need to build up a light box or something in 2021.

The miniatures come pre-primed, which is a bit odd for a hobbyist! I've picked up a handful of these kinds of minis for D&D before, but this was the first I've actually painted. 

The mold lines needed some scraping and cleaning. A lot of the seams are right across skulls, which would look funny. Nothing fancy there; just a hobby knife scrape in a few spots, and a small file in others. I decided to not re-prime the mini, and just see what happens. No issues so far... though it hasn't gotten a lot of wear and tear yet. I also ended up trying to fill a few gaps with green stuff, as some of the arms didn't fit well, and the joins were pretty noticeable. After pressing the putty in, I went at it with a hobby knife, trying to add lines/indents to mimic the muscle and sinew of the model. I'm not sure of all that prep work was actually needed though. The mold lines on the skulls, sure, but the model is pretty "busy" already, and the greenstuff may have been overkill.

Yuck. Super sorry on the quality here. I can't remember why I was playing around with the flash option. This is still somehow better than the unflashed picture. Anyways, here you can see where I was using the greenstuff.

I painted these up over a few days. They were quite fun to do, but were unfortunately about all I could accommodate in my dwindling hobby space. Painting up the muscles was fun, as I usually can't get that pronounced of a drybrush effect going, but with all the muscle bits, I was able to get in a red base, then a middling pink, and then a light pink in a few spots.

In the middle of painting. Pre-shading and pre- the glossy effect. The lighting was terrible, so I'm playing around with the flash on my phone. Sheesh. Again, sorry for the poor quality.

On the table, they seem quite strong. They are monsters, not heroes, so should be pretty easy for the Undead to unlock, especially if you are running a horde or two. Shambling is quite often a boon rather than a detriment, and for a monster... well, if you aren't getting (or at least threatening) shambling flank charges with them, I dare say you may be doing something wrong! Their semi-random attacks is hard to plan around, but with CS2 and again if you gen get them into a flank... these should be able to do some work.

Finished pic, back from a sunny day in October. I opted to go for a glossy coat on the flesh, rather than a full-fledged blood effect. I think either would look good. The mini is quite terrifying. 

They also have a special rule that helps their damage output, Cloak of Death, which damages nearby enemy units once the Goreblight has moved. The Abyssal's Chroneas pioneered a similar effect in 2nd, and (if I recall correctly) has this special ability as well in 3rd. While the range is small (6"), this can add up over a long, drawn out scrum, and since it can hit all enemy units within that range these can make excellent damage multipliers.

I figured these beings would be squishier, but instead they have a surprising sturdy Defense 5, and Nerve --/17 and Lifeleech too. They are pretty tanky!

About the only downside I can see is the Unit Strength of 1, which seems typical for monsters in 3rd. This means that arguably, the Goreblight will have a more difficult time holding or contesting objectives... but, if you can just obliterate the enemy units, they won't be contesting it anymore! Additionally, this downside only comes up if the Goreblight is unsupported. 

Other armies with other monsters might try this solo approach... but playing the Undead, I think this will be an unlikely scenario. You have access to Skeletons and Zombies and all sorts of mediocre, but numerous, infantry. So I think most of the time, the Gorebeast should be pretty well supported.

The Goreblight is a really cool unit. Hopefully I will see them in action soon!

Hobby Update: Abyssal's Second Moloch Horde

The launch of Third Edition threw a few of my armies into disarray. My Abyssals were probably the hardest hit at the time, due to Flamebearers being made irregular. This change limited what I could potentially run in Third, as now these units (admittedly only 2) needed unlocks instead of providing them!

Fortunately for me, over the summer I happened on another box of discounted Trollkin Champions and snatched it up. Even with limited hobby space, five minis were easy enough to paint up, and thankfully I had a spare base on hand too!

The second Horde is much like the first. There's... not a lot you can do to mix things up with the sculpts.

Getting a second horde was great, as they would let me unlock all my finished units for 3rd! I was still a hero unlock short, but I have enough spare bits and models to make a Regiment of Lower Abyssals sometime, and also picked up some models in 2018 to run as a Regiment of Abyssal Horsemen, so I would be set for all my unlocks eventually.

Based on when I took the picture, it looks like I finished the unit about concurrently with when Halpi's Rift was released, which actually reversed the Irregular status of the Flamebears. So, hey, I'm definitely back to being good on unlocks.

Slight sarcasm aside, a second Horde of Molochs will still be a good thing for me to have. My Abyssal army is mostly a bunch of glass cannons (Flamebearers, Imps, and troops of two-handing Abyssal Guard), so this second horde will add in some staying power. 

I think in 2021 I'll try to find some better shields and finally do up the Lower Abyssal Regiment, and hopefully get some work in on the Abyssal Horsemen conversions as well. We'll see what I can get done once spring hits!

Hobby Basics: Rivers

Many a historical battle has been influenced by rivers, whether securing a flank, circumscribing movement, or hindering the chance of safe retreat. They definitely have a place on a gaming battlefield, and back around April 2020, I set out to see what I could manage! 

You can of course just buy terrain if you want (the various Flames of War boxes do look pretty good, and reasonably priced), or maybe 3D print some, but if you're cheap, feeling creative, or a combination of the two, wargaming rivers are easy enough to do up on your own.

The pikemen attempt a crossing in the worst possible way.... maybe someone dropped something upstream?

Good terrain should be durable. While I think cardstock or thin cardboard could potentially work as a base, I've picked up a pair of PVC squares last summer, and have been using it for bases for my recent terrain bases. I've just been using a hobby knife and occasional saw to hack it into the shapes I needed. The PVC may be a bit overkill, but it's sturdy and working well.

For the river, I used a full 12" by 12" sheet, plus some 3" square scraps from the other sheet for the corners. I am least happy with the corners, but more on that at the end. While narrow rivers aren't necessarily safe, eyeballing it, approximately 3" wide terrain pieces and 2" wide rivers looked like reasonable but surmountable obstacles for Kings of War units.

Sketching helps plan stuff out, and line things up. 

I wanted the joining edges as flush as possible, so I used careful knife work to start, and a longer hobby saw for a more uniform cut. The edges on the banks I wasn't concerned with, so I roughly cut them with a hobby knife, and then carved out more interesting edges. Rivers don't flow in a straight line after all!

WIP with paste. In the top right, I added some pink insulation rocks, to create a section that would be impassable. I liked that 

Speaking of.... rivers DO flow, which creates a bit of a dilemma for this terrain. I didn't want to have easily identifiable directional flow like v's or eddies (if you do want that, check out this site here for some visuals). So I opted not to include rocks in the middle, for example, and paint up everything lazily, with cartoony current lines, so that I could orient the pieces in either direction.

The banks are Vallejo Rough Grey Pumice, painted gray as I wanted a kind of mountainous river look. I don't know why, I don't really have any mountainous basing or rugged 

The river's paint job is nothing too special. I did a base coat of GW's Temple Guard Blue, then a metallic teal from Deco Art to give it a glisten, and then current lines with some random blue paints. The intent was to try and show the speed without bringing eddies into the mix.

The finished result.

So, did it work?  Well, it's on the table, so yes, it counts! Are their ways to improve? Oh, for sure! Were I to do this again, the following things would be on my mind:

• The PVC squares/sheets worked well as a base. It took a little extra work to get the straight cuts (when not on the edge of the sheet, har har), but the effort seems worth it. They seem pretty durable, and should last a while.
• The basing paste worked too. Those various pastes have continually been pretty slick. 
• Cutting the bends from one piece helps get everything lined up too. This allows the river to line up with a table edge. This is not of paramount importance, but you don't want things hanging off table edges if you can help it.
• BIGGER IS BETTER. I think the pieces would look better a little wider, and would want to play around with some wider sections. I think slightly wider banks would also look good, and maybe going muddier rather than rockier would look good too.
• MORE IS BETTER. You want more pieces than you'd think. This amount can bisect a standard KoW table, but barely, and only on the short end. With a good bend, I can carve out one corner of the table... which isn't really fair. I'd probably want at least 50% more pieces than I have currently, to give more terrain options in a game.
• LONGER IS BETTER, at least for the bends. The tiny corners do not look great, to put it mildly. I think they have a place, but overall, longer and more curvy river sections should look better on the table, and I will not be making any more tiny bends.

Overall, this worked well though, and I learned a lot. Another sheet's worth of work and I should have a very passable, lengthy, and most importantly bendy river for the table!

Hobby Update: Miscellaneous Terrain

In 2020, I wanted to beef up my available terrain in general; for KoW and potential things like Fistful of Lead or Grimdark Future. Prior to the pandemic breaking out, I made a few materials purchases, including "Granny Grating", toy pipes, chipboard, a few more bits from the Garden of Morr set via bits shops (finally picked up the statue).

Over the summer, my hobby space shrank more and more as working from home became permanent, but I did manage to get a bunch of terrain pieces done. The most complex piece was the river, and I'll have a separate, more detailed post for that coming up. With any luck, these will actually see the table in 2021! Apologies in advance for the pictures... all of the terrain is in storage right now, and I'm using what pictures I took at the time.

I always liked this statue. Glad I was lucky enough to snag one on its own. 

I had previously lucked out, and picked up a few tombs from online bits stores. This time, I was able to snag some fencing, and the great statue. Frustratingly, the statue doesn't have a flat base, instead having an odd V-base, meant to lock into the specific base from the kit. For a ruined setting though, that works fine! I stuck it on a lipped round base, and the statue leans forward slightly, and the terrain paste covers it up. Some brown paint and a little acrylic gloss makes it all look like the statue is teetering a bit in the mud and muck. Hard to see from the pic here though, so I'll try to point it out in a future battle report.

The fencing is frustrating delicate; the bends to the points all happened accidentally. Though, like the V-base of the statue, this can be an advantage, selling the ruined look. I snipped some of the metal fencing down too, and the result should be a nice, meandering ruined cemetery wall. 

Some potential points of interest for games. Plus some barriers.

In my bits purchase, I also managed to score a steepled tomb from the Garden. I had a previous, still unpainted, one as well, so I painted both up over the summer. The red/blue rooves look a little silly color-wise, but I rather like them. I think they would make great objectives for a skirmish game, or opposing ends of a huge cemetery zone.

The obelisk is from Reaper, and made an appearance back in 2018. Here, I managed to paint it up, and add a nice little glossy effect to it, like it is all damp and stuff. Damp is good for a Cthulhu obelisk, and this will make a nice objective or something.

Lastly in this pic, are some bits I picked up on their own, from the old Chaos Warshrine. I picked up the sides of the shrine years ago, and they've just been sitting around. The actual sides bits (the bit with the little demony face) may get turned into ramparts or fences at some point too, but for now, just the ornamental lattice is being drafted for terrain. A little green stuff was needed to get them more secured to the base, and then a basing paste was used to disguise it all. These make me think of the little energy shields from Halo? These don't seem to really offer much cover, but have a nice feel to them. 

Quick overhead shot of the river. More to come on that later... 

The statues are from a 3D printed graveyard kit I purchased back in 2018, and hobbied on that same year. I did up the tomb and tombstones then, but never got around to the statues. I did them up with the Garden of Morr statue, and this picture shows off the muddy effect a little better. The 3D prints are fine, but can look bad if you get into detailed painting, as the printer results in all the little layers and such. To compensate, I did some very messy painting and more of an "overbrush" for the lighter gray areas than a highlight or drybrush.

Roman barricades, and more statues.

I have picked up a lot of boxes of Warlord Romans over the last few years. One of the Legionary boxes comes with a bonus plastic scorpion, and related siege-y bits, one of those bits being a sudis fence. It looks like I've picked up at least 5 of these boxes to-date, as I found 5 of the fence pieces, and did up a pair of fence terrain pieces, which should look nice matching with my Kingdoms of Men.

Onto the industrial bits!

About midsummer, I started playing around more with industrial terrain, for Grimdark Future, or Fistful of Lead, with the hope that I'd get some kind of tabletop game in this year.

On the left is an oddly long can, turned into a kind of fuel tank with the help of some cereal box to cover the ends and some bendy straws. I think it needs some little warning/flamable signs or something to finish it off, but was my first attempt at an "industrial" piece, so it turned out well.

The pipes are kids "learning" toys, linked earlier. A simple hobby saw can cut through them, and I messed around with an angled cut and a rusted pipe for some light cover, and a more upright piping system spewing green gunk made of hot glue. Both worked out ok, and were good tests. I used up like, 3 of 64 pieces, so more piping terrain will be coming eventually. I think they'll look better incorporated into structures, or as kind of longer "pipe fences." We'll see...

The structure in the back was a cylinder of mixed nuts. If you remove the labeling, there is a kind of cardboard underneath. Adding some plasticard strips, and a Mantic up top, and it makes for a pretty convincing little supply depot. This was mainly a test for glues and paints, and turned out pretty good, considering I just snagged it from my recycling bin on a whim.

The mixed nuts cylinder turned out nice enough, and was a popular snack in the apartment, so I kept experimenting. Late in the summer, I was really deep into the youtube channel Wyloch's Armory. I liked his general approach to hobbying, and just found his videos quite informative. I bookmarked a lot for future use... Getting more into industrial terrain, I was really surprised with his modular terrain, and decided to try it out. Instead of soup cans, I decided to test out a big coffee tin, and that worked out well enough I decided to use up more of the squat mixed nuts things.

Not too bad.....

Mine are unlikely to be modular though. I don't know what it is, but my precision is just not there. While most of these have the 3-layers and space for tabs... my sections are all messy. Perhaps a small ground walkway, like tossing down plywood on a small construction site could be possible, but I'm certainly not going to be able to rock anything as good as Wyloch anytime soon!

Weird, DIY paper mâché.

The last things I played around with were some "bunkers" of sorts, using mushroom containers, which had the right approximate dimensions to seemingly protect a few minis. I snipped the lip of the container off as it looks weird to include it. By itself, the plastic is pretty thin and wobbly, so I tried to reinforce the interior with some PVA glue and a bunch of shredded paper towel, in a kind of odd paper mâché. I can't stand on it or anything crazy, but it can easily support some minis on top, and it doesn't bow or flex as much when handling the terrain piece, so I'm counting this experimentation as a win.

I scuffed up the exterior with some very coarse sandpaper as an easy weathering effect and to give the primer and paint something to adhere to. A juice cap and granny grating was added to make the tops more interesting, and some basic grey and metallic paints were applied. This turned out great for what is arguably "trash!"

The terrain making was a fun endeavor, though these kinds of pieces tends to take up a lot of space. I basically doubled the terrain storage space I needed over the summer! Still, it will be nice to have more fences and the ability to put more (and different) things on the table when gaming does eventually resume.

Recommendation: Wyloch's Armory and One Page Rules

Back in 2018 or so, my girlfriend's younger brother decided to get into 40k with some friends. He really started getting into it, so I gifted around some paints and brushes, and eventually gifted him a bunch of old Slaanesh Daemons of mine (his faction of choice). 

Who could say no to that face? A nice little kitbash with my favorite fantasy warrior helmet and weapon. These got a very shiny Tzeentch-inspired scheme. The power weapon could use a little more work, and the gun barrels are slightly off-center, but it was my first time playing with either thing, so I was happy with the result.

Years previously I had picked up a Chaos Lord kit on discount from a local game shop. Seemed like a cool model at the time, but I never got around to painting it up for fun. And as his interest in hobbying grew, I decided buy a box of Chaos Space Marines and Chaos Bikers and join him in a few casual games.

It ... did not go all that well.

We used the dumbed-down freebie rules for 8th to keep it simple, but despite being college-aged, list-building eluded the young'uns, and they could not manage a legal list, (not with points, nor with power level... they couldn't even get the basic detachment approach down for 8th). Innumerable rules and 8th Command Points were similarly always misunderstood. It just wasn't great. We got (I think) three-or-four games in before Fall 2019 and schooling asserted themselves as priorities.

After the first game, I had been trying to figure out some basic industrial terrain to add to the table, and happened on a fantastic youtube channel: Wyloch's Armory. While on a hiatus currently, the channel is still a treasure trove of great terrain hobbying projects and advice. Seriously, go check out that channel. It's great for D&D, fantasy, industrial, sci-fi... all sorts of fantastic hobby ideas. 

As I delved deeper into the channel, I found some oddly titled battle reports, between things like Robot Legions and Battle Brothers and Alien Hives. The thumbnails all had 40k minis though, so I was confused. As it turns out, these were battle reports for a great ruleset from OnePageRules. I was immediately smitten, and encourage you to check them out as well.

Essentially, their "schtick" is to take an existing game and distill it into something very basic (typically, 1-2 pages of basic rules). They focus chiefly on GW, with rules to mimic 40k, AOS, and WHFB, though they do have a nice selection some one-off games, including takes on Gaslands, the insanely cool Crossfire wargame, and a few oddballs, like a game designed around plastic toy Army Men. Rules are free, though you can join their patreon to help playtest, preview new games, or just get files for 3d printing (and 2d printing, for the ultimate in casual wargaming). 

Grimdark Future is their 40k equivalent, and the ruleset appeals far more to me than the real deal! All of their rules are done by the same group (themselves) with the same points calculator, so while you lose the very granular distinctions for each subset of the big factions (no ultra-distinct chapters here, though you can mess with some special rules and upgrades), in exchange, you get a pretty balanced game. That is a win in my book!

The gameplay is similar to the inspiration, with lists and points and various upgrades and such built ahead of time, but the game takes the I-go-U-go formula down to the unit level, thereby limiting degenerate combos and preventing crippling alpha strikes, while creating a more dynamic battle. I very much like this approach!

While play moves unit-to-unit, things are still tracked by model (wounds taken, can it see enough to take the shot, etc). That's not too bad actually, as their other neat rules trick is limiting the number of models in a unit. If you buy a unit of 5 marines, you can bump that to 10 (if everyone has the same gear, no mixing and matching, for simplicity), but no higher. So Death Star units are quite hard to field. While this limits some army design, when the result is better balance, I still count this as a win. 

Age of Fantasy is ... well, their fantasy equivalent, and follows the same general rules: the I-go-U-go approach by unit; model-level tracking; and limiting the unit size (though with Fantasy, the units are larger, with most starting at 10 and maxing out at 20). 

All in all, I still prefer Kings of War for my fantasy game of choice. Being able to ignore the individual model is still a stroke of genius in my book, and this lets it really capture a mass battle feel. More KoW posts coming soon!  

But...

If you are in need of terrain tips for any wargaming or RPG setting, check out Wyloch's Armory.

And if you need another easy game in your arsenal, definitely consider something from OnePageRules.

Recommendation: Wiley Games and Fistful of Lead

Sitting down to write the blog's summary of 2020 got some gears turning again, so I guess the nebulous "catch-up" posts from 2020 will be coming sooner rather than later. I kept up blogging basically through April, so we'll just take it from there I suppose, and tackle it roughly chronologically, starting with some non-KoW recommendations. 

One of the tabletop purchases I made in early 2020 was a digital rulebook for Fistful of Lead, from Wiley Games. This purchase was pre-pandemic, and part of a plan to coax my girlfriend back into some tabletop gaming in 2020. That did not come to pass, but the ruleset still seems like a great way to get folks into tabletop gaming, so I'll offer some thoughts here.

The ruleset is very casual, and the game aims to facilitate small bands of miniatures (roughly 5 models per side), skirmishing over objectives. My hobby space started shrinking in April and May, and these smaller units were about all I could manage, since I needed to unpack and then pack everything up at the end of every session.

The orcs are all old GW models, purchased close to a literal handful of years ago now. I bought a blister of the push-fit orcs for fun, and was lucky enough to end up with a few armored ones back in the day from browsing some online bits stores.

In the game, models can do a variety of things above the typical attack and move, including literally creeping, interacting with objects, or completing tasks of varying difficulties. While you could play a more "kill"-style game, the scenarios provided and the larger number of potential actions your models can take want to push players towards a more narrative and objective-focused skirmish, like searching for treasure among some ruins, or powering down a superweapon node before the big things fires off screen. More scenarios are included in the webstore for purchase, but being a casual game, you could easily think up some things yourself.

These are minis from Reaper, with a guest appearance from a GW lizardman, who was my test model for orange. This probably isn't a legit crew for the game (certainly not optimized), but it was fun playing around with orange paint.

Gameplay is pretty unique, and actually geared towards pulling in multiple individual players, rather than dividing into strict teams. The game utilizes a shuffled deck of cards for turns, and players are dealt cards equal to the number of things they have to activate. Each round, you work their way through the face cards and suits in an order. As your card/suit comes up, you can activate a unit, and then play continues until everything has gone. This approach is not something I have encountered before in a wargame, and I really like this design idea, especially for a more social or casual game.

I am actually a fan of GW's various push-fit blisters. I ebayed the hero model to lead them, as a little birthday present to myself, as he looked really spiffy.

For cheap (just $7 at time of publishing this post), you can get a digital (but still printable) copy of the basic rules, though there are hard copies of the rules, game aids, and stylized playing card decks for sale if you want to support the designer more. I eventually did upgrade to physical rulebooks in September 2020, getting the core book plus some expansion rulebooks for running horrific monsters, broad sci-fi, and the post-apocalypse settings. 

Since they are selling the rules, not a line of miniatures, the system has a "use whatever you want" approach to running the game, which is awesome for a gamer like me with a lot of miscellaneous miniatures. With this encouraged flexibility, the game reminds me of playing with action figures as a kid? Or the Ultimate Showdown? Mashing up that much individually cool stuff is bound to create some fun times!

Wiley Games has created a pretty neat system. If you are looking for a casual game, particularly with Covid still running rampant, I'd suggest checking this out!