Tag: miniature games

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!

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!

Star Wars Shatterpoint, Workbench

Star Wars: Shatterpoint- Lord Maul

I have such a love/hate/love relationship with Atomic Mass Games‘ Star Wars miniature offerings. Legion hit in the mid two-thousand-teens and I loved the idea, but couldn’t stand the soft plastic miniatures. Then, Shatterpoint took the lead in the early 2020’s with some really dynamic sculpts and a fun game system.

But damn, buying the same characters again wasn’t something I wanted to do. Those soft plastics for Legion made my initial plunge into Shatterpoint an easy one, but then Legion ended up with some pretty good hard plastic sculpts as well.

Now it’s coming down to scale preference. At 35mm, Legion is already pushing the envelope of how big I want to get with a miniature. The 40mm figures for Shatterpoint look amazing, but with bases even bigger than Marvel Crisis Protocol, they get challenging to store, let alone display.

So, once again, I find myself debating going to one game at the exclusion of the other. Sure, I could keep both, but again, space is an issue. And Shatterpoint doesn’t have vehicles! AGH!

Still, Lord Maul for Shatterpoint was a blast to paint. He’s got those freaky spider mech legs from Clone Wars, and the larger minis really are fun to slap paint on.

Decisions, decisions.

Marvel Crisis Protocol, Workbench

MCP: Shadowcat

My introduction to The Uncanny X-Men was Rom Spaceknight #18, a cover with the coolest looking characters I had ever seen, teamed up with a FREAKING SPACE KNIGHT, not yet knowing that the cover had been drawn by the legendary Frank Miller. I was eleven years old, and doomed to love the X-Men from that point forward.

One of the coolest aspects of comics browsing in the early ’80s was that just about every grocery store had a spinner rack or some shelves with their comics on display, and that meant whatever hadn’t sold was pretty much still there. So, even thought the issue was a couple of months older, I was able to pick X-Men 139 up with a fortunate donation of half a buck from my mom.

This was also my introduction to John Byrne, an absolute legend in his own right. But right there, front and center, was Kitty Pryde, freshly minted X-Men rookie. She wasn’t Bucky or Robin, mere sidekicks (at the time) to title characters. She was the real deal, just training to get there. She was also about my age (sure, 13, but what’s a few years?). She was my favorite character, and pretty soon, Fifty cents a month was being saved up to follow along.

Fast forward some decades, and I’m still an X-Men fan. I don’t pick up the first-run titles, since $5 a pop is just more that I can afford, especially with an already expensive miniature hobby and Marvel cranking out half a dozen X Books a month. But I still pick up the trades where I can, and I’m still hooked.

Marvel Crisis Protocol released Kitty a bit back, and the miniature is fantastic. I wasn’t a fan of the phasing effect always being “on” with the sculpt, but these little figs are a work of art and it just works for me now that she’s painted up.

I’m hoping against hope that her “Captain Kitty” costume makes an appearance, I loved the Krakoa storyline and would really like to see new costumes! Still, this is a home run from Atomic Mass Games.

Miniatures, skirmish games, Workbench

15mm Wargaming: Chaos Cultist Possessed

Turning my frantic eye back to 15mm scale gaming for a bit, I’ve decided I would like to get one warband finished up for 15mm Mordheim. These minis would also work great for Frostgrave and Five Leagues from the Borderlands!

The first thing I wanted to tackle was a big possessed brute for a chaos warband, and this queen pretty much settles all scores, right? She’s hulking big, with lots of tentacles, teeth, and a little sneaky nudity for good measure.

I have one or two more possessed to finish up, and some Undead to plow through as well, but we’re off and truly running, and I couldn’t be happier!

I am also planning on getting some pretty elaborate terrain finished up for these warbands! The nice thing with this scale is 2′ by 2′ is going to give you all the gaming surface you need, and you can really go mad with kitbashing buildings, too!

Miniatures, skirmish games

Fantasy Skirmish: Dwarf Heavy Infantry

The goal throughout 2025, for my fantasy skirmish miniatures, at least, is to get my dwarf army finished up and ready for multiple different games, especially Kings of War, Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game, and Oathmark, and to have cool individual models that would work well as NPCs or skirmishers for smaller games like Mordheim, Five Leagues from the Borderlands, and Frostgrave.

These Heavy Dwarf Infantry models from Northstar Miniature’s Oathmark range are fantastic, they capture the classic feel of fantasy dwarfs without breaking the bank. There’s a lot of detail in these models, and considering you can get 30 of these duders for less than $40 US, you really start to wonder why people are spending so much money on monopose models from the industry powerhouse.

I also took the time to touch up a medium infantry archer, who will probably be a leader of a skirmish unit, as I want to use light infantry for the dwarf archer regiments that I’m building.

I’m also trying to spend my hobby money on smaller companies’ products, since the gaming ecosphere has been pretty much consumed by one company. Don’t get me wrong, I love that company’s products, but they’ll be fine if I spend less with them and help support these smaller games!