New game excitement: Dystopian games

Very little beats the excitement of starting a new game system. So when the postman delivered a box full of fresh new toys I couldn't wait to get the packing open and my hands on new game goodness.

Every now and then our club will run a little tired of the current games we are playing and will reach out for the thrill of something new.

The game is Dystopian Wars from Spartan games. Spartan games are a company not too far from my home town of Exeter, and have grown a great reputation through games such as unchartered seas and Firestorm Armada. I choose to buy the rule, pack of cards and the starter set for Federated States of America.

The Rule book is soft back and looks to be printed to a good standard with quite a few colour plates. I have not read the rules through yet, but first impressions are that the layout could do with a little tinkering. However it is a nicely presented book.

The book comes complete with a plastic coated fast play card.

I also brought the random cards. Although I have not looked at these in detail, there appear to be around 50 odd random events or buffs which will change the way your force work.

Then comes the bit I'm most interested in, the box of figures..

When you open the box you find that the figures are tightly wrapped in bubble wrap which are then pushed into the box. Its like playing pass the parcel.

I have photographed the figures next to a British 50 pence piece for scale. The bags contain..

10 plane tokens..

Two bombers...

and 13 ships of varying size.

With their bits and pieces...

The ships and the plane tokens are cast in polyurethane resin and the detail on these are to a VERY VERY high standard. True there is a reasonable amount of flash, but this was cleaned off in under 10 minutes and I am left with a set of models which are all screaming "paint ME first".

Time to abandon all other projects and start this one!

I only hope the game plays as good as the ships look.

Now where are my paints?

Hordes - Skorne Bronzeback in green and Gold.

It took a little while but the Bronze-back is now finished. This little six legged elephant dude adds a stupid amount of muscle to my already  heavy Skorne force.

There is a lot of metal in this figure, which makes it a fist full to hold, and awkward to move around whilst painting. However, having said that he is quire satisfying to paint because he has such large areas, which you can do quite a bit to...

I was a little worried when I assembled him that he was leaning far to far over. I had the thought that I might need to remove hi from his base and stand him up a bit, but after spending a few hours painting him I grew to quite like the pose. It kind of grew on me and I believe now that it makes him look a little more dynamic.

The scale type armour around his rear end is very easy to paint and adds so very much to this model. It gives the lad a more flowing look and hides an awkward modeling area. I think it is a great idea and adds loads to the model. 

I elected to paint all the metal's in a non-metallic (ish) look when I started this force. I have used it on all the models painted to date. Looking back I m very happy that I did. It does not look a lot like metal, but I like the effect, especially on-masse...

I have added the final, elevated picture to illustrate the bronzing of the bronze-back. This was the last colour that I added to the model and it is the one that I am least happy with. I coped the patch pattern from the Skorne book, where it painted onto a grey bronze-back with very good effect. Here it has not worked quite as well. As normal, I intend t let it sit on my shelf for a month or so and if I still don't like it then I will do something with it.  However don't get me wrong, I am very pleased with the overall look of the figure and had a lot of fun painting him.

 

Skorne: Bronzeback assembled

It has been a week of work leaving does and other excuses for pub crawls, so not a lot achieved this week. I have decided to add a bit more muscle to my growing Skorne horde. What better way than to throw in a Bronze-back....

I completed a bit of a figure swap for a cyclops I don't think I will ever use and have gained the bronze-back model in an assembled and undercoated state. The first thing to notice was just how poorly this model fits together. Especially the link between the legs and the arms, where I am convinced that there is more of metal not touching than touching across the joint.

I snapped the model apart. In reality I threw it on the floor and set about rejoining it together using a significant number of pins, and then when set, using a significant amount of green-stuff.

The first stage was to push enough green-stuff into the base to give me a platform to work off. Once this was dry/set I could add more to model the muscle structure.

Now I look at the pictures I can see that he is leaning over a lot! I may paint him up and see how he looks then, if necessary I will have to stand him up a bit.

legionary 2011

To mark the fact that we have now set up a web site for the tournament and show orgainsed by two local clubs, I have banged together a poster and a link should anyone fancy visiting Exeter in May......

Pegasus Hobbies River sets

Pegasus Hobbies make some good quality, very low cost scenery items and when it comes to buying robust scenery for a club, they are a must have. The only problem is that they are sometime hard to get in Britain.

When I completed the statistical analysis of what scenery you were likely to roll in an 8th Edition Warhammer game, it showed that you have a 59% chance of needing a river. Playing since the edition was released has confirmed we needed to buy more river...

So we set about getting two river sets. One set is just a little too short to covers a gaming tables needs.

When I say getting the river sets is the only problem, that is not quite true, the other one is that they are a little too brightly painted for my liking.

So I set about toning them down a little..

First Job, add some sand:

This photo shows two sets drying in my back yard. As you can see here, you get two 45 degree bends, two 12" straight lengths and two 6" length in each set.

The next job is just to paint in the normal way, flock and add a bit of water effect...

Voila:

Skorne agonizers

The plan is to go for Dominar Rasheth as my Warlock, if I follow through on this, his tier list means that I can have more than one agonizer. Therefore it is time to splash the paint at these guys. I have decided to paint up two...

Agonizer A

I believe that it is commonly understood that these animals have lived a life of suffering. Don't fall for it. I think they just want the sympathy.... They love a little attention and will try their best to whimper at just the right time to attract it.

To try and reflect this attention grabbing behaviour I have given them big round eyes which I have then gloss varnished. I have then varnished under the eyes to make it look like they are crying. It looks better in real life, but I think you can just see the effect in these photos.

Agonizer B

There is a limited amount you can do to the posture of these guys to make them look different, so in this case I have avoided making too many changes.

The paint system for the skin matches that used on the Titan gladiators (agonizers that are allowed to grow). This is a colour scheme taken straight from white dwarf 362 for minotaurs, however I have kept it quite dark. The scheme is 1:1 scorched brown and Tallarn flesh washed with 1:1 scorched brown and badab black. This is then layered up through 1:1:1 Scorched brown, Tallarn Flesh and bleach bone through to 1:1 Tallarn flesh and bleached bone. These are then given careful washes of Devlan mud, Baal red and Leviathan purple.

Titan Gladiator # 2; Two is nearly a herd.

Last week I started my second titan gladiator and had a go at a Celtic flag design. This weekend she is finished....

OK, I have not quite finished. The flag is no further progressed, but it is as far gone as it is going to be until I regain a little more courage to finish it off. As stated previously, there is almost no conversion work on her, she is just as she comes from the box. The only real change is that I have stuck with the green and gold colour scheme adopted on the first of these girls that I have painted.

Hope you enjoy, constructive criticism, as always welcome...