Donut Worry

 For my birthday last month, my wonderful, lovely wife bought me a few pieces of modern terrain - a 3D-printed donut shop and a couple of MDF kits. I ordered some resin furniture from Miniature Building Authority to complement them, and started in on the donut shop, though found myself switching gears to paint orcs last month pretty vigorously. Picking up Majestic 13, and needing to be able to field urban tables, gave me the impetus to finish up the shop (and having a head cold that's left me too foggy-headed to play a game has certainly not impeded my painting either).

Two notes: One, I'm very grateful that Reaper Miniatures sends out free bottles of "Breast Cancer Awareness Pink" in every order during the month of October, because I'm pretty sure I went most of the way through one bottle painting the interior and the sign. 

Two, "Big Nick Was Here" is a bit of a personal in-joke. I didn't want to paint overly-raunchy graffiti in case I ever have occasion to set up and run a modern skirmish at a convention, and early in the Pandemic I was looking at playing Zona Alfa solo, re-localized from eastern Europe to the American Southwest (to better fit my collection of cacti and desert hills terrain). So Nicolai, the bandit leader from the first scenario in the book, became the American biker "Big Nick," with a Mark Copplestone biker figure painted as such. You can see him here. He's such a characterful figure that I'd welcome any opportunity to put him on the table. While it's hard to justify a group of player-character Hell's Angels in Majestic 13, and there's no option for civilians to be running around the table complicating fights, I'm sure Big Nick will find a way on to the table again soon - even if under a different ruleset. Either way, his mark's here. 

I'll get the building and furnishings varnished tomorrow afternoon, and then Tuesday I'll cut some clear plastic sheets to size and glue them into the windows and glue the furniture down. And then it's play time!

Majestic 13: Test Play #1, "Keel's Killers Vs. the Avenkian Shrieker"

The other day I picked up a new solo/co-op skirmish game called Majestic 13 from Snarling Badger Studios. Premise is you have a team of five operatives who belong to one of 13 organizations that have joined forces to protect the earth from an alien threat; in most games, this threat is made manifest as a single big, brutal monster with a lot of hit points. The video game series "X-COM" gets referenced quite a bit as a comparison, but I've never played it so I can't say much on that point. Realizing that I had everything I needed already painted, it was short work to print up the PDF, roll up my team, and get a test game on the table.

 I'd initially planned on playing out my first test game tomorrow, Sunday the 18th, as I was scheduled for two RPG sessions today - but I woke up feeling a head cold coming on, so I bowed out of my afternoon in-person game, and the online game I'd been scheduled for this evening was postponed by the GM. So, with my evening suddenly free, I figured I'd move up my first playtest to tonight.

 My group is "Keel's Killers" - a group of roughnecks (oil rig workers, industrial welders, etc.) given guns and told to stomp mudholes in monsters. Their leader, Johanna Keel, is a veteran of Majestic 13, having pulled this new group together after being the sole survivor of a previous team. 

Left to Right: Keel, Barker, Moseley, Arnold and Klass

Rolling a few dice, I determined they'd be fighting in a wilderness area and facing off against an Avenkian Shrieking Shock Trooper, one of 26 monster archetypes presented by the game. In this case it's a pretty straight-forward brawler type that also has an area of effect attack - by shrieking, it can deal damage over a 12" radius, which is quite a bit when you're playing on a 3'x3' board! I picked a Reaper Bones "Gloom Stalker" (or in D&D terms, a Hook Horror) to represent the monster.

"If you go down to the woods to-day..."

The monster activated first, and charged across the board into Moseley, scoring a critical hit, dealing (2D6+3)x2 damage which was...not great for Moseley. Pretty much everyone else moved in close and started shooting, which worked great until the monster took damage - another feature of its stat block is every time it takes damage, everyone within 12" needs to make a saving throw or take damage as well! After that everyone started spacing out and shooting from a distance, while Moseley tried to get away and maybe reach Barker or Arnold, both of whom were carrying medical kits. 

Unfortunately, while restrained in the monster's claws, Moseley fell victim to a flash bang grenade thrown by Keel, leaving him stunned as the monster finished him off. The Avenkian then turned it's attention to Barker while the team continued to (try to) shoot at it. Arnold never successfully put a round into the monster, despite having an average chance of success. 

 

The game has a FUBAR mechanic - each turn, a D6 is rolled and the current turn number added to it; on a result of 6+, something has gone wrong, ranging from civilians wandering on to the battlefield, another monster showing up, or in this case, an errant drone strike potentially hitting our heroes. On turn 5, Keel took 3D6 damage from said errant drone strike. 

Games end automatically after the end of Turn 5, and if you haven't killed the monster by then, you're SOL - team-members who are still alive flee the scene, and the monster becomes someone else's problem while you're debriefed and recover. At the end of Turn 5, I'd reduced the monster to half its starting hit points. Following this, there's a whole mini-game of seeing how your team-members recover (or if not, whether their cloned replacements are weird or not), and trying to requisition upgraded gear and improvement's to your team's base of operations from the bureaucracy. I haven't delved into that yet; I figure I'll play a couple of test games to get the feel of things and then maybe dive into the full campaign experience the game is geared towards. 

I don't have enough knowledge of game design to feel I can truly comment on the mechanics that much, but I will say that I really enjoyed how fast-paced the game is, and the 5-turn time limit keeps things from bogging down. I felt like I picked up and fully absorbed a lot of the mechanics very quickly. Also, with charts to roll on to randomly generate locales, terrain, threats and bureaucratic complications, I feel confident in saying that this is a game that can easily stay fresh for a very long time, with no two games being the same.

One thing that will take some getting used to for me is some of the spinning plates - for example, I think I forgot to roll a FUBAR check on turn 4, and I'm pretty sure I forgot about the monster's reactive area of effect ability on one of the turns where it received damage and there were team-members within 12". 

All that being said, I had a great time with my first play through, and making it through with three team members intact and the monster reduced to half-hit points feels like victory enough for a first play. I'm looking forward to rolling up another table's worth of terrain and a fresh monster tomorrow.

"Building a Dark Elf Army," White Dwarf #144 (Dec. 1991)

 No, I'm not switching gears and building a Dark Elf army. These scans from White Dwarf issue 144 (Dec. 1991 - I was 4 years old at the time) were posted in one of the Oldhammer groups on Facebook and I found them to be a really fascinating read and honestly, for me, thought-provoking.

My first visit to a Games Workshop store came almost a decade later, in August 2001. Warhammer Fantasy Battles 6th edition was in full swing and I loved the idea of building an army. However, the messaging I got at the time - less so from the staff at that Games Workshop store, but from other patrons of the store as well as message boards online - was that 2000 points was the absolute minimum army size that a game could be played with, and there was no point in me showing up for games with anything less than that.

Being a 14 year old who only really had spending money in the summer and after Christmas, and with an oversized case of "Ooh! Shiny!" syndrome, building a 2000 point army was daunting to the point of being out of the question. I built a couple regiments of plastic figures - Night Goblins, then Skeletons, Orcs, then the hunchbacked 6th edition Chaos Warriors - but eventually felt like I'd never get anywhere and moved on to other games.

I wonder what my hobby/gaming trajectory would have looked like if someone had sat down with me and said, "Let's make a plan to get you started with a basic, well-balanced 1000 point army, and then build from there if you want to continue"?

State of the Orc Army - Memorial Day 2023

 Afternoon all, today is a federal holiday in the United States and so I had the day off work. Having gotten quite a bit of work done on my Oldhammer Orc project this month, I decided to unpack everything and get it on the table - see what I've done since the last review, and get a sense of what I want to add. Not to toot my own horn too hard here, but I'm honestly impressed to see what I've done so far:

All total, that's 115 Orcs, 47 Goblins, 15 Hobgoblins, 4 Trolls, 5 "Hobhounds," 5 Boars and 6 Wolves. A unit-by-unit breakdown (mostly) follows:

A unit of Goblin Wolf Riders with bows, joined by a Goblin Big Boss. A second unit of these is in my project box, waiting to be assembled and painted.

Harboth's Orc Archers, a classic regiment from 1987. I still need to do shields for them, and I have a large number of these in my closet that I could strip 30-year old enamel paints off and paint up if I so desired. Behind them is a Doom Diver catapult, ready to fling goblins across the battlefield. 

Da Red Bastids tribe, with a unit of Bog Trolls behind them. Da Bastids are done, I have four unpainted trolls in my project box awaiting painting.

The Black Fire Boyz, a unit of orcs that have begun wearing stolen Averland uniforms and imitating pike and shotte tactics. This unit is complete - I don't want to paint more puff and slash.

The first regiment painted back in 2019, these Black Orcs will be expanded out to 15 and given new shields. Behind them is Mighty Epigruel's Slop 'n' Go Chuck Wagon. I wish baggage trains had persisted in WHFB past 3rd edition. 

The Kingbreakers, my second block of 25 orcs. 

Some characters - a classic Orc Boar Boy, an Orc Commander from Knightmare Miniatures, an Orc Shaman and an early 2000s Games Workshop Savage Orc Shaman. Behind them are a block of Goblin Archers. The orc shaman's staff has a crack on the shaft, and I'm concerned it's going to snap off right above his hand. I've tried wicking some superglue into the crack to bond it, but if that proves to not be enough I'll replace it with a skull just above his hand - turning the staff into a shorter walking stick. 

A unit of Knightmare Miniatures' goblins up front, and behind them an Orc chariot converted from a Foundry Beastman chariot, and in the back "The Old Guard," my Orc Big'uns regiment (joined by the Battle Standard Bearer). I have enough goblins, from a couple manufacturers, rattling around in a box to where I could bulk this unit out to 40, maybe even almost 50 if I really wanted to, but it's not the highest priority.

The Old Guard are all sculpts first released between 1985 and 1996, mostly Citadel, but there are a few Heartbreaker figures in there as well. I've got 19 figures painted, and it will be bulked up to a 36-figure block. I've got more Citadel and Heartbreaker, as well as some Marauder and Alternative Armies figures in the project box waiting to be cleaned, based and painted; I think I still need to buy just 3 more figures to complete the unit. 

My Hobgoblin Mercenary Contingent, not fieldable in any edition of Warhammer Fantasy Battles more recent than 3rd. I've got a dozen Mourngul Renegades, along with a Shaman and a Contingent Commander riding a Temple Dog (represented by a Reaper Krung Beast). In front, a Hobgoblin Beastmaster drives a herd of Hobhounds (represented by Knightmare Gnashers) before him. 

A better look at the Baggage Train. Part of me wants to add a couple more wagons (a torturer's cart and maybe a mobile shrine to Gork and/or Mork), but again, not a very high priority. 

So what's left to add?

There's a couple additional units I want to add:

• 10 Orc Boar Riders. I collected these and made a few conversions (a standard bearer, musician, and a couple of weapon swaps), and they've been sitting primed and ready to go waiting for me to get a storage case to put them in afterwards. I've got the case now so these might be next on the table.
• Another unit of five Goblin Wolf Riders, plus a Boss. I have these in the project box, I just need to get a Boss figure.
• 15 Savage Orcs, to be fielded with the Savage Orc Shaman seen above attached. I've got 13 of the Mark Bedford-sculpted Savage Orcs from 2000, a few of which need some stripping, including a full command. Just need to collect two more. 
• A Rock Lobber - this will be proxied with a Foundry/Warmonger "Mercenary Great Orc" carrying a gigantic medieval firearm (the "Orquebus"), surrounded by a crew of goblins ready to clean and reload between shots. This is already in my project box, though I might still add a Warmonger "Orcling" holding a telescope as a spotter. 
• Mangler Squig. I don't know if I'll ever play 8th edition WHFB, which introduced this unit, but I have the Knightmare "Giant Gnasher" and I'm looking forward to making a diorama base for it. 
  

And a couple units that need expansion:

• Another 5 Black Orcs painted, plus shields. I've got two in my project box, I just need to pick up three more. Shields will be the kite-shaped face shields from Foundry/Warmonger. 
• At least two more Trolls painted.
• 17 more Orcs for the Old Guard. I think I've got 14 in my project box, so I'll need to source three more.
   

 This project has given me a lot of joy since I started it in 2019, and also a lot to think about. One thing I've noticed in social media spaces devoted to miniature painting and wargaming, as well as in the language used to market products to us, is an emphasis on "spend less time painting" and "get [y]our army on the table faster." Faster, faster, faster - always faster! Does 21st century life not move fast enough already?

I've absolutely and categorically rejected this messaging. Being thoughtful and methodical in every aspect of this project has been the key to my enjoyment. Browsing manufacturers' websites, supporting small businesses, and taking the time to base coat, wash, highlight every figure...I have an army that is entirely my own, painted in my own style. I've gotten faster at it through dint of practice, rather than using tools and techniques designed to speed up the process. 

Something I've seen a lot of among people playing the latest edition of Warhammer 40K or Age of Sigmar is buying an army, speed painting it, playing with it for a season, then selling it to pay for next year's army. And that's just not for me; in ten years' time I expect to still be admiring this army in a lit display case in my home. It's been an investment in my own happiness and honestly, my health (I had my annual physical last week, and I attribute my improved blood pressure to spending less time on social media and more time painting orcs), and I'm far richer for having taken the route I did with them.

The Kingbreakers - 25 Orc Boyz

 I'm absolutely chuffed that I can say I've finished my second big block of Orc Boyz for my Oldhammer Orc Project. Again, the first 12 of these were painted in 2021 for the Old World Army Challenge; however, rather than using the standard bearer I'd originally painted for the unit (his banner made him effectively impossible to rank up unless I put him on the end of a row), I used the fellow I'd painted in April 2021 as a possible Battle Standard Bearer for the army as a whole. His standard - a couple of halberds and swords lashed together, topped by a skull wearing a crown - gave me the identity for this regiment once the last 13 figures were painted.

 

These are the Kingbreaker Tribe - years ago they ambushed and butchered a king and his retinue as they crossed the badlands, and now they wander the Old World, looking for his kingdom, now theirs by right. At least, this is what they believe to be the case. In truth, they ambushed a traveling theater troupe and killed an actor who happened to be wearing a painted cardboard crown at the time. His skull and crown now sit atop the Kingbreakers' standard pole. Everywhere they go, they point at the skull and ask "Was dis your king?"

This unit also contains my first "unit filler" base, if it can be called that; it's two figures based together on a 25x50mm base instead of individually on 25x25s to form a little vignette that sits in the last rank. I call it, "Performance Review."

Yes, the orc in the red vest is vigorously picking his nose, while the orc in blue looks on contemplatively; this is the third nose-picking figure I've painted for this army, and I think the fourth with a booger hanging out of his nose. It's part of the Oldhammer charm on display here; these are oafish orcs, essentially soccer hooligans with tusks, instead of lean, mean killing machines. These are orcs who are going to forget about the enemy regiment right in front of them to get into a shoving match among themselves, and that's something that's important to me with this project.

New Terrain Acquired!

 Good evening readers. Today happens to be my birthday (36 this year), and my lovely wife was kind enough to treat me to some terrain for modern/post apocalyptic skirmishing, as she'd seen how much I enjoyed working on the Sarissa Precision Guard House last month.

First up, she got me two more Sarissa kits - a residential trailer and a gas station! The residential trailer looks like it will be a pretty easy build (knock on wood), and maybe I'll get a few more and some model chainlink fence and make myself a proper trailer park. The broad base on it lends itself to diorama as well - I could put an old couch, a dog house, or any number of things next to the trailer and tell a little story with it.

Secondly, she picked up this 3D-printed doughnut shop from Etsy, with the rationale that it makes a good companion to the gas station; given the role our local gas station convenience store and doughnut shop plays in our lives, this is an entirely reasonable rationale. It's got a removable roof and the interior is open, so I'll be adding a counter and some seating, as well as cutting some window panes from acetate. 

I'm excited for these buildings to be playable inside and out, and not just blocking off a section of the table. I have 13 more figures I need to finish off for my Oldhammer Orc project first, and then I'll work on some of this.

Dem Wots Got Stickas - 20 Goblin Archers

 I've been consciously putting my phone away in the evenings, and consequently have been much, much more productive as a painter - who would have guessed it? As such, I've finished off another regiment for my Oldhammer Orc Army. 

 

Some of the first figures I painted, way back in 2019 when I was trying to nail down color schemes and get the hang of how I wanted to paint orc flesh, were six goblin archers; five from Knightmare Games, and one from Harlequin/Black Tree Designs. I had another four Black Tree goblins, and sometime in the last year or two I ordered two packs of goblin archers from Warmonger Miniatures. Long story short, once I went through my project box, I now had enough to put together a unit of 20, respectably deployed in two ranks of 10 to maximize how many shots they can fire. 

I also went back and upped the highlights on the original six to bring them more in line with the brighter colors I'd painted the new 14.

And for added content, here's an instance of domestic brinkmanship that occurred last night while I was working on these. Atticus, not content with only being served one helping of "Greenies" dental treats, decided to make himself at home on my painting table in hopes I'd try to bribe him into staying away from my figures.