skirmish games

DIY Wargaming: Fleshing Out a Character

Circling back to my Wargame Heartbreaker*, I’m realizing the only way I can test out what I’m working on is by creating some characters and letting them fight it out. Drat. What a drag… how ever will I survive the fun?

I’m going to start with my Witch Hunter Captain. We’ve seen him before, he’s a dashing lad and should be entertaining to stat out!

Here’s the stats as they currently stand:

-Movement (MOV): Usually 6″, can be more or less, never less than 4 or more than 12 without use of powers.

-Melee (MEL): Fighting in close contact with an enemy

-Ranged (RNG): If it shoots or fires something, this is the parent stat for using it.

-Willpower (WILL): Used for break tests and deflecting supernatural attacks

-Endurance (END): Used as the base for figuring out Hardiness, and for working out how much damage a model can take.

-Strength (STR): Base score used for determining damage dealt in melee combat. (Strength+weapon damage)

Finally, his Wound Capacity (WC) is derived from his END stat.

For the Witch Hunter Captain, I want him to be above average (d6) in a few areas, and I want him to have a few perks and hindrances that give him that witch hunter energy.

MOV: 6 MEL: 8 RNG: 10 END: 8 STR: 6 HRD: 6 WC: 8

Skills: Perception (6), Stealth (4), Faith (8), Intimidation (12), Persuasion (6), Taunt (8),

Weapons: Sword, Hellbringer (signature flintlock pistol) Range: 5/10, AP 1, DMG: 2d6, Reload 2

Armor: Thick Leathers (armor 2)

Perks: Signature Weapon (+1 to RNG with Signature Weapon), Arcane Protection (-2 on offensive spells cast against this model), Command (grants +1 to allied WILL checks within 12″), Fearless (immune to fear effects and spells)

Hindrance: Suffer Not the Witch (+1 to MEL and STR attacks against spellcasters, cannot break from combat or retreat.

That’s an awful lot to digest, and I still need to work out a points-buy system, but it’s a beginning. Now I need to work out some opponents and make sure everything flows okay.

If you’re interested in seeing the rules system I’m cobbling together here, let me know in the comments and I’ll share my progress with it!

Again, apologies for the lack of minis progress, I’m still on the mend from the fourth major abdominal surgery I’ve had in the last 2 years!

*The team “heartbreaker” was originally coined for games that were designed to be “better” than the game that inspired it, most often Dungeons & Dragons back in the day. The term was a little mean-spirited when it was coined, but I kinda like it!

skirmish games

DIY Wargaming: Pillaging from the Best

I’ve been going on a lot lately about wanting to build out a game system that works for me and my tabletop preferences. If you’ve read this blog at all, you’ll know that I’m frustrated with a lot of what Games Workshop calls rules these days, and that I’ve found a lot of other games that are too hot, too cold, too firm, too soft, and nothing that’s just right. Yup, I’m Goldilocks. And none of these damned bears have anything I want.

Just your standard group of Beastmen, Beastmen who need stats! (from my collection)

I spent the better part of February valiantly trying to hammer out my own system, jabbering like a hundred crazed monkeys clanging away at the keyboard. And just like those metaphorical monkeys, I produced a mighty heap of, you guessed it, gibberish.

Game design, it turns out, is really tricky. I’m not an un-clever person, but the web I was weaving myself into was getting pretty sticky. I was getting stuck. I should ease off on metaphors…

So, like many people before me have done, I am going to pillage my way through stacks of inspiration that are currently lining my bookshelves. I have collected a massive library of game rules over the years, so I have plenty of sources of inspiration to draw from!

After going through everything, I think a bit of what I am looking for can be adapted from the Savage Worlds role playing system. It’s a universal system that is setting agnostic, and I like the base mechanics. After spending a little time under the hood, I think that stripping out the RPG elements and focusing on the stuff I like will give me a good framework to build off of.

Is there a way Cyberpunk dudes can fight Beastmen? I guess we’ll find out! (from my collection)

One of the things I was working on in my own homebrew system was a way to use different polyhedral dice to represent skill levels and attributes. Savage Worlds does something similar, but they’ve been at it for 30 years and have done a bit of streamlining that flows a lot smoother than the aberration I was building.

Basically, each Attribute or skill is ranked as d4, d6, d8, d10, or d12, with the higher numbers being better than lower. Since Savage Worlds is an RPG, there’s a ton of skills and special effects baked into the system, some of which work with a table top skirmisher, some of which absolutely don’t. That’s fine, I can work that part out. Mostly I’ll be using the Attribute system as a springboard for everything else. I’m throwing about 1/3 of that out, though, because it’s a little clunky for the flow I’m looking for on the table.

At the end of the day, I want a system that lets me put Cyberpunk assassins, Beastmen, and murderous orphans on the same table. Not all the time, mind you, just when the spirit hits me! (from my collection)

There are aspects of other games, like Relicblade, Necromunda, Mordheim, and Frostgrave that I’ll be adapting as well. The biggest challenge currently is developing a points buy system to give some approximation of balance, but that’s not going to be impossible… I hope!

Apologies for the lack of minis progress in this post, I am recovering from surgery and can’t spend much time sitting at my paint station yet!

skirmish games

Fantasy Skirmish: Witch Hunter Warrior Priest

I’ve been working on building out a Witch Hunter warband for fantasy skirmish games, and with the Captain done, it was time to move on to the Warrior Priest.

The Warrior Priest I fielded in Mordheim 25 years ago was a big bruiser with a two-handed warhammer. Going through the Hexbane’s Hunters warband from Warhammer Underworlds, I realized the big hunter with the mega axe could be converted without too much fuss.

I took a two handed hammer off of a Chaos Raider, then worked out the haft so that it fit the arms of the hunter. It was a pretty simple conversion and really brings back the way my old Warrior Priest, at least in spirit!

I kept to the same tones as the Captain, then put on an oil wash for this guy. After that was settled, I went back in for some highlights, then drew an “S” on his forehead. You know, for Squidward.

Here’s the Witch Hunter group so far!

Fallout Factions

Fallout Factions: The Disciples, part two

Continuing to work on my Disciples warband for Fallout: Factions! I’m adding another base mook and a leader model this time around.

First up is a basic raider with a gun, grenades, and knife. I didn’t mess around too much with it and just did base colors with an oil wash on it.

The kneeling figure is Dixie, one of the lieutenants of the Disciples group. She’s particularly blood-thirsty, and has a ton of hacked up corpses just hanging around her barracks. Sadly, the resin on the base got hacked pretty good when I was trying to trim the pour gate, but I don’t think it ruins the figure.

I’ll be using Dixie in Fallout: Factions as a random leader or fill-in trooper, depending on the situation. Here’s the group so far!

Star Wars Legion

Star Wars Legion: Empire Riot Control Squad, part two

Getting back to the Empire Riot Control Squad from Atomic Mass Games, we’re taking on the energy mace troopers today! Once again, I’m a huge fan of this entire box set.

These dudes remind me a lot of the electro mace trooper from The Force Awakens, so having two of them for this squad is pretty cool.

Painting them up wasn’t too bad, either. I went with a straight white undercoat, then used an oil wash to add the shading. The oil wash was two parts Payne’s Grey to one part burnt umber, then a liberal amount of white spirits to dilute.

Energy effects were a blue speed paint over silver, then general white highlights over the whole model after picking out the eyes and helmet rim in black. Some light damage effects on the shields, and I think I’ll call them done!

These guys look pretty cool with the KX Droids!

Marvel Crisis Protocol

Marvel Crisis Protocol: Beta Ray Bill

When I was in my early teens, Walt Simonson was working on the Thor comics for Marvel. He went really hard into the whole Cosmic Fantasy aspect of the character, and somehow managed to stay incredibly close to the design aesthetic established by Jack Kirby. As a comics smitten kid with a penchant for doodling, I was smitten.

Somewhere along the line, Thor did something dumb, and Odin, being Odin, decided that Meow-meow needed to go to someone else, someone more worthy. So, the hammer made its way to Beta Ray Bill, a Korbonite warrior who was, as it turned out, pretty worthy. Look at this cover… it’s still metal as hell four decades later!

Atomic Mass Games released Beta Ray Bill for their Marvel Crisis Protocol game a couple of years back, and the box has been sitting neglected by me since then. I did paint up Ulik recently, and Bill was my reward for being a good boy and posting consistently through January and February.

Gaze upon the freaking MAJESTY of this sculpt! When you have something this amazing to work with, the miniature pretty much paints itself.

I still sometimes forget that this miniature line is part of a game and not a series of DIY collectible figurines. I guess it’s all in your mindset, right? Nightcrawler from the X-Men is up next!

skirmish games, Uncategorized

Fantasy Skirmish: Witch Hunter Captain

I’m still working on a system for statting out my fantasy minis, but until then, I’ll keep on posting progress on figures!

The Witch Hunters faction from Mordheim was one of my favorites, with lots of fanatical idiots running around causing all kinds of trouble for anyone else on the board. I knew getting started that I needed a strong showing from a faction similar to that, and there’s nowhere better to start than with a leader!

This mini is from a Warhammer Underworlds box that I’ve had kicking around for ages, and while he’s really tall compared to most of my minis, I figure he probably grew up with a lot of access to high quality foods. Yay! I found a way to grapple with scale creep!

This whole box is great, with three hunters and a couple of hounds. The captain has enough extra stuff on his belt that he shouldn’t be hard to stat out when I finally get a system worked out. I also want to add a mini to this group that’s sole function is to load pistols!

I decided to do something new with Rolf, and added some orange and purple tones to his clothing. I’ve been set on this whole “middle ages=drab earth tones” mindset for a while, so I want to shake things up and add some colors that I normally don’t play with much!

Next up will be a warrior priest. With a HUGE hammer, because of reasons.

Miniatures

Star Wars Legion: Empire Riot Control Squad

Did Star Wars: Legion just win the coveted prime spot in the what Star Wars minis will this dork settle on debate? It may just have. While I really, really enjoy painting the Shatterpoint minis I have, the 40mm scale makes them stand out against the rest of my minis, and I really don’t want to double-dip on characters. Plus, I like squads, vehicles, and terrain, especially if I can use that terrain with other games.

The Empire Riot Control Squad is a fun one, since it comes with droids AND stormtroopers, and they’re a rare case of Atomic Mass Games making units that don’t appear in movies. I figured I would start off with the KX Droids, and apologies in advance: my lighting setup over-saturated things a little, I promise they look less gray in person, hahaha!

I’ve been keen to get some paint on these guys since I bought the box, but watching a bunch of them smacking innocent protestors on Andor really made me want to get them to the table! I’m not a fan of fascist governments, but I like having miniatures of them to shoot at in my games. Once again, everyone wins when the fascists lose, right?

Love the sculpts on these. Can’t wait to get the rest of the squad painted up!

Workbench, Miniatures

Fallout Factions: The Disciples (part one)

I wish I had been a Fallout fan earlier. My oldest kid was way into it, and I remember listening as she played the hell out of Fallout 3, New Vegas, and Fallout 4. I’m a huge Skyrim fan, so you would think I would have played sooner. Really, it took the new series to get me to look at it again, and now I really can’t look back.

I love the Atom-Punk vibe of the whole thing. Alternate histories are a hell of a thing, too, and the games and show have strung together a pretty fascinating look at a future that looks a lot like our past had a baby with an old Flash Gordon serial.

I had the Welcome to Nuka-World starter for Fallout Factions, and sold it, thinking I wouldn’t get back to it anytime soon. I still had the Disciples set, and decided I would paint them up before making up my mind on more minis from the franchise.

I think I want more minis from the franchise. Modiphius has made some pretty cool minis, and the hard plastic kit for the Disciples is pretty keen. I was thrown at first because they’re a true-scale 32mm, so the features, hands, and feet are smaller than I’ve grown used to. But they’re fun to paint, take an oil wash well, and look pretty good once all is said and done.

I ordered the character command minis for this group, I should have one of them done for the next update!

Marvel Crisis Protocol

Marvel Crisis Protocol: Ulik the Rock Troll

I have to be honest here, I hardly remember Ulik from the Thor comics. Sure, he was there as hammer bait a lot if I remember correctly, but under normal circumstances I’m not sure I would have picked up this model.

But he came with Beta Ray Bill…

Also, the model is just plain bad-ass. Yeah, he’s a giant beat-stick looking for a good solid smack, but isn’t that what trolls are for? He looks amazing!

I am really happy with the metalic green armor scales, I used diluted green ink over silver and it did exactly what I was hoping! This was a really fun model to paint!