Stardate: 1001.2356 Location: Surface of Putney Prime Corporal
Grove could almost taste that the Combat Burger now! All he had to do now was
get off this hell planet and back to the space station and he was going
straight to the burger shack for a meal....
***NOTE: Most Pictures Converted back to Color from B&W...I think its better...you?***
Here is a quick break from the Terrain building marathon I've been on...
...today my son talked me into a quick RT-lite game...honestly, it didn't take much convincing.
I let him pick out five figures to be his bad-ass squad (he Chose Chaos Bobba Fett and some Ork boyz with big guns!) and I pulled together some Battle Systems Terrain and an Imperial force to attempt to halt Fett and his minions.
The following bat rep is a...will fill you in on the rest...In a Comic-fied retelling of the harrowing deeds of the day...
After many failed attempts my local gaming crew was finally able to get together to play a game of Rogue Trader 40K last weekend...and we had a ton of fun. I had four players and acted as GM myself and it was about the perfect sized group for the game I had in mind.
For a scenario I fell back on the one that Dustin and I played at OHNW 2015 which was a blast to participate in and turned out to be just as much fun to GM.
Lets get into it!
Background
After several months of fighting aboard the large Space Station (Excon Valderz) that orbits the planet Putney Prime in the Outer Rim Territories, Imperial Forces were finally able to force Ork Radiers led by Narblaz the Nasty to retreat to the planet surface. Here Narblaz regrouped and attempted to salvage something out of his failed mission by exerting control over the planets surface. However, Imperial forces followed him planetside in hopes of eliminating this Ork scourge once and for all.
As you have seen by the flurry of other blog posts and FB posts the Oldhammer in the New World event is done and dusted. It was an epic weekend full of laughs, hard fought battles, bleary eyed warriors...and yes...last minute paint jobs.
But I digress...lets start from the beginning.
If you will recall from my last post...I spent Thursday night enjoying life with my wife and children at the local fair. It was perfect night with lots of fun, and unhealthy food, for all.
Upon returning home around 10pm I set about filling my miniatures case and packing my books and all the sundry things needed for a weekend of dice rolling and miniature talk. It took way longer than expected and I didn't lay my weary head down to rest until well after midnight.
...this made the 6:30am alarm very unwelcome...but this turned out to be one of the better nights sleep that I would have for the whole weekend.
I was out the door and on the road by 8:30am heading south to Pennsylvania. The first leg of my trip took me down familiar roads toward Albany NY, passing along the southern reaches of Lake Champlain, Lake George and the upper portions of the Hudson River. Around Albany I picked up a college radio station that was playing a long uninterrupted set of Grateful Dead tunes and as I listened gleefully to "Sugar Magnolia" and "Box of Rain" I finally started to relax into what was bound to be an epic weekend.
As my journey carried me down along the Lower Hudson River the Grateful Dead started to break up and I switched my listening to my favorite Pandora Station: Cream! With the thumping bass of Jack Bruce and the driving drums of Ginger Baker Blasting through my exceptionally hot car I cruised down past the Big Apple and into New Jersey. At this point I turned my car westward and entered Pennsylvania itself.
A constant stream of encouraging texts and messages from the crew that was already in Allentown propelled me forward and as I drew closer my excitement level continued to build. As I exited the highway and began to pick my way through the bustling metropolis of Allentown...one of my all time favorite (and seemingly appropriate) classic rock and roll tunes helped me push through the heavy traffic and finally arrive at the event venue.
After a quick stop to relieve the incredible pressure in my bladder I strolled casually into the Magnolia Ball room (flash back to Grateful Dead tune) and found the lucky few that had arrived early already rolling dice and having fun. The Advance team had done a superb job of setting up the space and getting things kicked off as soon as possible.
In fact I found most folks engaged in the first play through of Brian's amazing Bretonnian Frog Hunt Game. There was much laughter and many terrible jokes to flow out of this incredible game.
Watch out for that MASSIVE crab!!!
After meeting and greeting everyone who was in attendance Dustin and I quickly pulled together an RT 40k game...something we had been discussing for months...obviously neither of us could wait. We took over half of Rusty's amazing table that he had provided and Dustin dressed it up with some scatter terrain that he had brought. This game found my imperials facing off against Dustin's Orks in a struggle to recover the Transport Homing beacon that had been recently eaten (along with its owner) by a rampaging T-rex and unceremoniously "deposited" (some hours later) somewhere on an inhospitable planet. And to make things even more interesting the T-rex was still in the neighborhood and protecting his "turf."
We had a great time with this game...it was quick and dirty with may feats of bravery and plenty of silliness as well....lets just say that the T-rex ate at least 30% of my forces...
As the afternoon turned into the evening we took a quick break for dinner and then returned to get Bulldog Lopez's RT Demo Game kicked off. I merely observed this one as I was still frantically trying to get some painting done on my Bret Knights but suffice to say to was a well run and impressive looking 4-way game that continued until well after midnight.
At this point you may be thinking: "well...that sounds like a full day! I'm sure that was enough for day 1!"
Well...you'd be WRONG!
After much convincing and cajoling I was pressed into a late night round of the frog hunt game...and I'm glad of it. Once again the constant frog leg jokes and attacks by random, and vicious, wandering monsters made this game a real joy to play.
My warband performed admirably...though I ended up losing by a single frog.
Bleary eyed and sore from laughing we all shuffled off to bed a little after 3am and collapsed onto our beds to dream of the excitement to come on Day 2!!!
Just a quick post to show you the basic setup I've put together of my Battle Systems Sci-Fi terrain. I've had this stuff for months now and have just not had the opportunity to put it together and start enjoying it. This week I forced myself to spend several evening focused on producing at least a basic board to play on. With the help of a couple of committed friends we produced this set up.
I will try to get a few more room items put together before things kick off but either way this will be a fun little set to get some experience adapting the RT rules to interior spaces. I see running a number of quick scenarios tonight...snatch and grab, meeting engagement, sabotage the reactor, Get to the Chopper!, etc. With only 2 1/2 squads of figures painted up they will obviously be limited in scale but should allow for fairly fast games that we will learn a lot from.
Here are some more pics of some of my troops trying out the terrain. Please forgive the iPhone pics.
hmm...looks like I need to adjust those Struts in the background!
I'll post up some pics and breakdown of the nights events over the weekend!
In the run up to OHNW one of the units I really worked to get complete were my squad of Retained Knights from Alternative Armies. I finished the first half of this squad as an entry for the Lead Painters League earlier this spring...but I had hoped to get a game of RT in Baltimore this October so I pushed the rest of the squad through the painting queue.
....sadly the game failed to happen this time (Next time Bulldog!) but I'm still glad to have a finished squad to deploy on my sci-fi terrain...assuming I ever get it put together.
Anyway...here is the squad as a whole...below are individual shots of the new ones.
Sunday found me up and ready to go by 830...despite a running battle with the rabid bacon thieves who were raiding my hotels breakfast bar all morning...ggggrrrr friggin kids!!!
Anyway...I arrived at DropZone shortly after 9am and found things just getting rolling. About a half a dozen folks were already there...including a much refreshed Blake after a good nights sleep.
After having kind of floated around chatting and what not for day one I was ready to dive right into a game...luckily for me Tom was obliging and we quickly pulled together a moderate sized pick up battle (2k-ish points) that we set up on one end of Rusty's warband table. Tom brought out his very impressive chaos army and I was finally able to get my dwarfs on table!
So I don't want to spill all the beans on the battle itself as I'm sure there will be future posts in which to tell that story. Suffice to say that Tom and I had a blast and I was overjoyed to get my lads on the table against such a well painted and led opponent. There were laughs... there were tears... and the dice gods were fickle at times but ...thats Oldhammer for ya!
I loved every minute of it!
Here are a couple of teaser pics...you'll have to wait for the rest.
Howdy all...sorry for the lack of blogage over the last few weeks...life has just been too hectic for me to spare the time.
...anyway...time to get back on that horse.
Well my LPL kind of fell apart this year...things had been going quite well until the second half of the contest. After using the team of Averlanders for Round 7 I was able to complete one more new team for round 8 but after that I had to use two teams that had been previously displayed elsewhere...which means that they didn't receive the "new team" bonus points...which meant my standings in the polls continued to slide...:(
Oh well...as someone once told me..."Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" (whistle....) So lets forget about the above and take a look at the last new team I was able to complete for Round 8.
Just a quick post here...I'm home with my sick son today so ...multiple posts!
Anyway I really liked the way the visor came out on the Muster Troop so I decided to go back and try to do the same thing with the R. Knight. Now the Visor slot is MUCH smaller on the knight than on the trooper...so it was quite a bit more difficult to pull off...and messier. But I like the results...so in the future I will do this part first and avoid all the Clean up!
Anyway...here he his with his new shades...
Yikes! this angle shows off some sloppy wash! and rough blending!
Following on the heels of my test paint scheme for the Retained Knights I took the opportunity to do the same for "Imperial Guard" figures. As stated before I'll be using Alternative Armies Muster Troops as my standard Imperial infantry figures. Once again I've gone for a fairly "realistic" paint job on these guys. Though I will be using them mostly for Boarding Raids and other shipboard actions I wanted them to stand out from the grey terrain I will be using them so I've opted for a more natural woodland style camo for the cloth portions and a very dark gray/black for the armor and helmet.
As a step forward for my RT 40K project last night I quickly worked up a paint scheme on one of my Retained Knight models to see if I was happy with it. I'm looking for a fairly "realistic" military color for their power armor...I'm trying to avoid the bold primary colors that we so commonly associate with Space Marines. To this end I pawed through paint stock and pulled out all the Vallejo Model Color greens, grays, and brown. By mixing a couple I came up with a color I was happy with...I think it looks realistically "military" but will also stand out fairly well against the gray background colors of the Battle Systems Terrain. Using one color for almost all of the figure will also allow for significant time savings through the use of the bilk painting techniques I practiced with on the Brets over the last summer.
I will certainly be adding some kind of motif or unit number to this guys shoulder pads...I'll have to start shopping around for decals...
Building upon my last post about the 'Imperial Guard" figures I will be using for 40K gaming I wanted to show you what I have working for my Space Marines. Like the Muster Troops that I will be using for Imperial Guard, the figures I will be using for my Space Marines are from Alternative Armies Ion Age range. These Retained Knights make great proxy Space Marines ...they are sculpted by Bob Olley and have a very Rogue Trader "Feel" to them IMO. Of course they were first released in the early 1990s so they are not too far off the mark from RT itself.
Right now I have enough Retined Knights to form two 10-man squads each with two support weapons. For the sake of better pictures I will present my force in detachments of 5.
Detachment with Rocket launcher...I'll use the guy with the "pistol" as my squad leader
One of the projects that I hope to accomplish this year is to get some painted units together to play Rogue Trader 40K on the Battle Systems Terrain that I recently supported via Kickstarter. The forces to be employed will consist of a platoon of Imperial Guard and a couple of Squads of Space Marines, on the side of "good" and some Chaos Space Marines and perhaps a few Orks on the side of "bad."
As I can't possibly take on the task of collecting yet more vintage citadel figures at this juncture I plan to use figures from outside the Citadel catalog for the Imperial Guard and Space Marines...figures from Alternative Armies Ion Age range in particular. This also fits well with a recent challenge put out by Whiskey Priest on hisBlog to shows the adaptability of the Oldhammer Movement by painting up and gaming with a unit of non-GW figures.
From the looks of my Blog feed it appears that a year end summary is required...so here it is....but I'm not real happy with where my gaming headed this past year...so all I will say about my 2013 Oldhammer accomplishments is...I had a couple of good games, I broke my ankle, and I painted a shitload of Brettonians ....that's about it.
...So I would rather spend my time looking forward and thinking about what I hope to accomplish in 2014. So lets look at the four major food groups of my obsession:
Yikes! Nearly a month since my last post! I could bore you with a bunch of excuses as to why...but lets just say RL has been cramping my hobby time in a big way.
So since I've gotten very little done in the way of painting...Lets look at the ever expanding lead pile instead!!
As some of you who haunt similar forums as me know I've been selling off a lot of extra figures from my collection...this leads to money in the PayPal ...which leads to obsessive eBay trawling.... which leads to more small boxes and padded envelops randomly appearing in the mailbox... which leads to exasperated looks from the wife...:)
One of my latest "successes" on eBay was the acquisition of some excellent Sci-fi models...both from the Rogue Trader Era Citadel range and from slightly further afield. A gentleman from the States was selling a number of Chaos Renegades individually along with a Chaos Dreadnought. I put some low ball snipes in on the whole lot of them and promptly left for a short holiday with my family. Half way through my trip a received a flurry of emails from my eBay account letting me know that not only had I won a few of them...but I had won them all! They weren't a tremendous bargain but at just north of $5 ($15 for the Dreadnought) each I was pretty happy.
The Dreadnought has been avoiding me for months!
A nice mix of Renegades here.
One duplicate...and the guy in the right is from 1993...but close enough for me!
These twisted disciples of evil will join the other 8 or 9 Renegades in my collection allowing me to field almost two complete squads...a squad of Chaos Terminators...and a dread...Nice!
As you may have noticed the two Plague Marines have different...non-RT backpacks...which I have to say I really like! Can anyone tell me from what edition they are from?
I had also noticed that this same seller had a fairly large lot of non-Citadel Sci-fi figures and when I went to see what they had sold for I found that no one had bid on them...so I dropped him a message and offered to include some money for those in my payment as well...he agreed and added this lot to my box for only $10!
Thats a lot of metal for $10!
These are all figures from Alternative Armies Ion Age Series of 28mm figures. I first became aware of this through the amazing work of Pil....a regular contributor on LAF who painted up a bunch for a client. I was pretty impressed with the figures then (and Pil's amazing brush work) and felt that they had a very RT feel to them so the chance to get my hands on a fairly large batch at a bargain price was a no brainier.
This lot includes a number of Retained Knights...which I will use as alternative Space Marines. I think they are at least as cool as many of the old Citadel sculpts.
Perhaps its my fondness for Sallet helmets that makes me like them?
The rest are a batch of more lightly armed infantry...and to be honest I will have to do some thinking about what to play them as in RT...but the sculpts are still quite good IMO.
To Give you an idea what these guys can look like painted...here are a couple of Pil's Pictures (which I hope he doesn't mind if I use)
Of Course Pil's excellent scenery helps make them really look great!
This last shot is of more lightly armored human figures not included in my lot called "muster troops" which I think could equate to Imperial Guard...I see myself hunting them down soon...
Back in the foggy distance of time I had several squads worth of Citadel Space Marines...but stupidly sold them off a couple of years ago when I was focusing my attention on my dwarf collection...but with the discovery of these figures from Alternative Armies I don't see myself trying to rebuild that collection...These seem to be a fun alternative and one that is still in production and can occasionally be found for a pittance on eBay....unlike the classic Space Marines.
Thats all for now...if my painting mojo continues to elude me I'll let you in on a few more of my recent impulse buys.
