I've had on & off plans for a return to sci-fi painting & gaming. There have been several project or potential projects brewing for years now, and I think I may not only move ahead with some/all of them, but I'm going to try to tie them all together.
Let me start with the brainstorm I had over the weekend on this topic. It all started with the Gothmower.
Yes, Gothmower. I bought a new electric lawnmower towards the end of last Summer. The start button, for some reason, looks like a green coffin. I usually listen to music while mowing, and last time I decided I should honor the Gothmower by listening to some music in that theme. Because I am of a certain age, the first band that came to mind was Bauhaus. Turns out I don't really like most of their music anymore. So this week I put together a playlist from another suitable band...
That went much better. I hadn't listened to ASF for a long time, but this was inspiring. The lawn didn't stand a chance.
As I rocked out and mowed, thoughts drifted to painting and gaming. What if I started with Rogue Trader as a base, and then drifted off into my own cobbled together crazy space-opera setting/theme, sort of like I started with Warhammer but made it my own Althammer. As the heat and music kept my mind drifting around, I remembered that Rogue Trader was already a bit of an "open sandbox". The 40k setting didn't start getting fleshed out with tedious officialdom until later editions. So I won't really be diverging -- sort of a retro-hammer sci-fi thing.
But I'm not sure how much Rogue Trader I will actually be playing. In fact, right now I'm on the hunt for some solo rules. I just bought Five Parsecs from Home and will be reading through the rules this week. I also have a few others on my radar. But eventually I'd like to play some games with live opponents someday, too.
So here's a brief summary of the projects/plans that I'd like to pull together:
- Meat Hating Robot Pirates. Previously mentioned, and I've already collected quite a few 'bots.
- Rogue Trader Eldar. They were my first RT/40k figures, before I even bought the rules. I just liked the figures. As happened a lot, I sold them in college. But I have been working on collecting figures for next year's Old World Army Challenge, which is opening up for 40k as well as fantasy.
- Spaven. Cheese Stealers. Not sure I'll go any further with them. Maybe a few odd figures if I get inspired in the future.
- Adeptus Mechanicus. I've been planning an AdMech Kill Team force. So I will hopefully break my block on building & painting the figures.
- Miscellany. Civilians, mercenaries, beasts... I don't know. I'm sure I'll add some oddball stuff in at some point.
- Gaming surface & terrain. Still thinking about this a bit. Thinking about a dark alien world look like on the Spaven bases, but also doing some sort of semi-modular starship/building tiles -- along with all the accessories.
Only one robot painted so far.
Some of the Cheese-Stealer Cult.
Eldar on deck.
