Plans Never Work

In the Blood Bowl game there is a god they players and fans worship called Nuffle (not NFL). If Nuffle exists, he is not smiling on me today. I was up early with a plan to varnish the prc team. When I picked the varnish up it was apparent that I didn't have enough varnish to do it. So I moved on to the humans that I was going to undercoat. The wind was blowing them everywhere. The spray was more or less non-existent beyond about three inches. Then the cat managed to scatter them all over the place. Anyway, they are done now and I need to leave them to dry for a bit before starting painting them.

Way too many figures for me to contemplate and this isn't all them

So now it's about finishing stuff off. There is a lot of odd Frostgrave figures on the table.The gnolls are the most advanced so they are looking like the first choice. I have some rats, a beast master and some monsters floating around to. The North Star gnolls should not take long tolong to finish although I should be careful what I say. As I have become used to painting orc linemen, the gnolls are tiny. I went for a neutral colour scheme which means washing and highlighting should be quick. As they have been sat around for a while, it would be nice to put them in a draw and hide them away after they have been painted.

Anyway, this is another month over. I have just about managed to maintain an average of a post a day if not an actual daily post. So I am still on track to keep it going till the end of the year and beyond. The blog is nudging 400,000 hits and I would hope to get there in about a week. I won't be happy until I hit the million mark but I am guessing that this is a while off.

Human Team Ogre

Now that I am considering doing the Human Blood Bowl Team next I thought it was time I should put this together. What I am really doing is avoiding finishing the Orc Troll. I hate doing bigger figures and they never really seem to get finished.

Anyway back to the Ogre. He is a nice brutish figure. Even though he is a large figure I am not sure that it makes sense that he costs about half as much as the human team which is six 28mm figures. He is a nice figure and has a lot of animation. As he is plastic he can carry off the animation without being too fragile.

For the most part the kit went together okay. To be honest I think GW could use a few ideas about how to write a manual to help put something together from Ikea. Over time I have found that if you get the order of construction wrong, often with the arms, everything is going to go wrong.

The end model is nice. The plan is to paint up the body before adding the head. He should make a nice addition to the human team which is now looking like it's going to end up with about 25 players. I have seen someone do a Nurgle team and I now think I might save some of the linemen as part of a Nurgle project although I have a number of ideas about that.

Orc Linemen

Having spent a good part of the last two days painting I am feeling back like I am back in the saddle. I may even make the target for The New Cruelty. Well more or less. I can't varnish them and therefore cannot stick the transfers on because right here right now the rain is falling pretty hard despite being a pretty good day so far. To be honest there are a number of details that need attending to, ear tips and a few pieces of jewellry still need doing but the day isn't over.

The figures are really nice. The body shape fits my idea of what an orc should look like. Much bigger than people and have the crazed barbarian look.

I haven't finished the Troll. There is a lot of work in this figure if you want to get it right. As well as being more than twice the size of a regular figure it also carries a goblin which needs painting. The Goblins are not that much smaller than a regular 28mm fantasy figure. This makes it at least as much work as three other figures.

The mini has come out darker than I wanted (it's the same colour as the Black Orc Blockers). This will need a bit of work to bring it back. Hopefully this will be finished next week.

Some of the human figures are already put together. Now I am putting a few more together. I already have the ogre but lack Griff Oberwald and The Mighty Zug. I will probably order them through the local GW store and wait for them to arrive before starting the force.

Today I have won a few bits of eBay. In fact I have won pretty much everything I have bid on and it has all come in at the right price. I have a sprue of Skaven. This will go with one of my birthday choices which will have everything else I need.

All the other stuff is Malifaux. I have an urge to play this at the moment. It is also making me want to make a gaming table. One big enough for smaller games. I already have some wood cut to make a 4' by 4' coffee/gaming table. Then plan is to do something pretty close to a regular gaming table with a lip to store stuff like mugs, dice and figures out of the way and a hinged lid  to give me some storage space. SO perhaps another project.

Back To Blood Bowl

All the thinking about Blood Bowl I have been doing over the last few days has got me back to the work bench. This came as a bit of a surprise to me but I figured it was time to not be sat in front of the laptop all day.

Mostly it was Blood Bowl that got me going again. My mind still isn't fixed on the game yet but it seems a good place to start. For while now I have been putting off finishing of my orc team. Whilst I have some extra linemen to paint and the troll I don't have Varag, the goblins were due out and I was expecting to get Ripper Bolgrot when they inevitably release the figure. My plans usually involving getting all the figures together before painting begins so they all end up looking something close to similar colours.

Having already disregarded this, I had blocked out some more orc linemen. They had become one of my background projects. Whilst I should probably have gone back to the gnolls, this seemed the right thing to do.

So far I have spent about four (fairly interrupted) hours working on them. As I have a bit more time tonight, I am hoping that I can do a bit more. I've also got a bit more time in the morning so hopefully they should be all but done by the end of the weekend.

The picture is a bit rubbish. They are however very much work in progress so I am reluctant to do too much of a close up.

Birthday List

It's been an odd day. I have been sat around musing about what to do in terms of buying some figures. What was going through my head on Wednesday was on my mind a lot. I was drawn to Games Workshop and found that they had the latest Blood Bowl Pitch in stock. Having a thing for Blood Bowl I had to have it. This has set me down the what do I want to buy next route.

When I look at what's out there now, there isn't that much more than there was a few months ago. Goblins are the only new team for a while and Goblins are not the greatest team in the league. That said, a few would go with the Orc Team and a few more with some extra Skaven would make another team.

Then I looked at Forge World and there are three teams available that have all the toys in the box. Trouble is they are all around the £100. Being realistic I am not going to buy something that costs that much money that is going to sit on a shelf. I feel much the same way about Malifaux. The only difference being I never know what faction to buy, I have been burned buying the stuff before (players letting me down and the damn company releasing a new edition just after buying three box sets) and they are also going to sit on a shelf because I have no opponent.

So  got to thinking. My birthday is only four months away and if they were a gift that wouldn't be a problem.

I guess this has a lot to do with the way mini gamers acquire a lead mountain. For years now I have been trying to reduce my Lead Mountain (and the plastic and resin ones too). I am not sure I am actively decreasing it at the moment but in the round for the year so far I have painted a lot more than I have bought. So maybe I better hold off till my birthday. At least.

Game Of Thrones And Bigger Picture Fantasy RPG

I was catching up with GOT today. It is only really this show and The Walking Dead that I really look forward to at the moment. So finding a moment when I can watch it without interruptions is a good thing.

Watching shows like this (and Vikings, The Last Kingdom and similar shows like Rome have similar vibes) always make me think what they would be like as an RPG. I have seen plenty of figure conversions on sites like Lead Adventure Forums for GOT minis. Possibly there is also a viable kickstarter out there with some more specific figures for a tabletop wargame. There has been a tabletop  RPG out there for a while as well. Basically there is no shortage of inspiration.

To be honest I doubt I would run it as a tabletop game. There is far too much to remember and players being people are bound to trip me up. However it did start me down the road of RPGs and the statecraft element. These, and other systems, had a big effect on the idea of spectacle that plays a central role in my games.

The biggests game I have set in motion, in recent years at least, such as Fallout and Vikings, both featured mass battle system. For the Viking game I have even done a Savage Worlds mass combat system. Yes I know they have a skirmish game called showdown but it doesn't give the almost wargame feel that I wanted which still allows the players and heroic NPCs to have an effect on the outcome.

Whilst I know these are combat systems, the real pleasure in such a system is how it creates a story and builds a background. If you look back in dark age history the most notable events are the battles. This is despite the being fairly limited records of what went on. Now I am not talking in terms of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles but having a history of the game alongside a mythology always helps the players to buy into a game.

Most players like a scrap. There are not many RPG games out there that are combat light. Skirmish battles are fine but if the players want to make it into a games legends, they have to claim their glory in the biggest battles.
 

More Thoughts

The great gamer's malaise is on me again. As I am looking around for something to do. I now have so many half baked plans that I am having a problem making a decision about which one to pick. For the last few days I have been tinkering with (that's like working on something without any real emphasis) a Conan RPG for savage Worlds. The more I read about the background and I play the game, the more hard work I see ahead of me.

Over the last few days I have had a lot of Meh moments. My plans to work on stuff for laser cutting are all on hold so I am a bit of a loss. At times like this, when things are not going my way I look at The Plan for the year and then have a look at work is in progress and see if there are any quick wins to be had.

At the beginning of the year I was all about Blood Bowl. Well the rcs team at least. I now have a decent looking Orc team and need a few more line orcs, Varag Ghoul Chewer, the troll and some Goblins and all would be complete.

This caused me to go back and look at the GW shop for the first time in a long time. It has to be said this was a bit of a disappointment. I know there are a few star players on the Forge World site but each single figure costs about as much as a whole team. Then I had a look closer, there is actually only one new team with the other team being a composite of two other teams.

Skaven, as a Blood Bowl Team at least, have a place in my heart. They were the first team I brought and along with the Undead and the ones I have played the most. With some of the special characters that are now out there, they actually start to look the part. The trouble is the team, as sold by Forge World is a few pounds short of £100. Then I would like the pitch as well. Suddenly I start to go ouch when I think in order to be able to fill all the slots in the roster I would need another basic team box.

Going back to the Orc team, I wanted some goblins and they are the one new team. They come with a couple of ogres which would round out my game nicely. The few extras that I would have left over from buying a basic Goblin box as well as extra Skaven would probably do the the Undead Creepers.

This gets up up to around the £250 mark. This is to finish one team and get three more teams with most of the options. For a game I play about once a year. So, if I am going to get any Goblins I will go for the bigger set then I can at least have two fairly complete teams. I don't already own a Goblin team and this seems to  make some sense to me.