Undeadish WIP on the Painting Table

I've been working on 800 things at once, so I've got some more figures started, but nothing quite finished yet. But a lot of the undeadish are coming together on the painting table...

After I finish this batch, I will do a small group of cavalry to go with them, followed by a boatload of basing. Then I believe I will wrap up some odds & ends.

Undeadish Ogre Prototype

I was wrong about no pictures in my last update. I forgot I had painted a prototype undeadish ogre & took a photo. Pretty happy with it, so I think I will go ahead with the rest of the small unit of them.

Photo Pages

I am going to start putting together photo pages for my current project(s). These will appear in the links at the top of the blog (or a pull down navigation menu on the mobile version.) Right now there is only the Army of Marienburg, and just a few photos there so far. I will add more as time permits.

I think I'm also overdue in assigning my domain (www.zerotwentythree.com) to the blog. For years it has just forwarded viewers to the Blogger (zerotwentythree.blogspot.com) site. It's about time that I (finally) set up Blogger to just incorporate my domain. I'd like to set that up sometime soon, too.

Sorry, no new photos of painted figures. I have some other pressing deadlines to meet by the end of February, so not much painting for another week or so.

Great Orcs and a German

Small update. I painted up a woman from Foundry's Ancient German range (will go on a command base,) and did a bit of rebasing on some previously painted great orcs (and a hobbit...) Both intended for use in the solo fantasy game I'm working on.

Leonardo vs. the Undead

That's more a concept than an official title, but who knows.

The idea I'm pursuing for a solo game is fantasy. My old Empire/Marienburg army as the live player (me) against a programmed/solo army of the undead. Seems like a good fit. I'm heading out of WFB territory. The first rules I'm planning on trying out are a variant of Hail Caesar and either Crusader's Legions of Battle (fantasy) or a variant of their historical Crusader rules (which I think I prefer for a few reasons) or a combination of the two Crusader books.

So that means no "army lists" either, just my own ideas, which is liberating. I think I had already grown tired of the rigid & overly competitive atmosphere that was increasingly dominating WFB. I've just started to poke around some of the blogs/pages of "Oldhammer" stuff, and I think that's sort of more my calling.

I've been posting  some of these thoughts at Warhammer Empire, which I've still continued to visit during my "break" from gaming and increasingly jaded view of WFB. (Great people on the forum, they feel like old friends...) So I will copy & paste what I wrote there regarding my first concepts for the two forces below. (Next time I may post my first thoughts on solo gaming rules.) But first, a few pics. Because this is the internet, and a miniatures blog, and I know that we don't "just read the articles," as the saying goes.

These are some old ancient Germans I still had from my now sold ancients. A mix of Foundry and Crusader. Painted to look a bit undeadish... but not entirely. My initial concept is inspired a bit by the Brothers of the Pines from Moorcock's second Corum series. They've sold out to an inhuman power, and are now unnaturally bound to service, while still retaining some will of their own. So not the mindless undead, but not entirely free, either.

 

 And also a few more artillery crew for the Marienburgers, old GW figures.

So on with the words...

Concept for the forces of Robo the Necromancer

Robo (as I am calling him/her/it for now) is obviously the C-in-C, but for now will remain out of the picture. Or off the battlefield, at least. That will leave various subordinates commanding in the field. I'm going to use the structure of Hail Caesar/Warmaster as a starting point, so armies will have several commanders, each in charge of their "brigade." So to begin with, I will define several subcommander archetypes, which will mostly determine the composition of their forces, but maybe to a certain extent will also determine their leadership capabilities as well. I think most of these will be unique, except there will be multiple Military Animators. Possibly more than one Spiritual Enslaver.

1. Military Animator: Animates undead troops, which are directly controlled by the leader, in a militaristic style. These will form the backbone (haha) of Robo's forces, and will be composed of typical skeleton infantry & cavalry.

2. Spiritual Enslaver: A manipulative leader, controlling the semi-undead & magically bound slave troops I mentioned before. Infantry & Cavalry of formerly independent humans, and possibly other races.

3. Agent Provocateur: Scheming necromancer who destabilizes towns/cities, then animates the dead into mobs of zombies. Since the Agent is more a social manipulator than military leader, this explains why the zombies are masses of sloppy, meaty dead compared to the more reliable skeletal troops of the Military Animators.

4. Vermin Lord: Allies. I have some Skaven and other rat themed figures. I like them, want to use them, and think vermin fit well with the undead. This is not a GW Vermin Lord, but I do like the name.


Other hazy concepts under consideration: Etherialist, Beastmaster, Constructor, Besieger. Maybe those last two are combined into an Engineer.

Also under consideration are individual mercenary or slave units that may show up in any of the commands above, as individuals, or maybe together in a sort of "evil dogs of war" type mercenary brigade. This is entirely based on either figures I already have, or things I may want to get & paint up for whatever reason. So far this would include (from my existing collection) Greater & Lesser Goblins, Myconids, and maybe Greater & Lesser Troglodytes.

Concept for Marienburg forces

Well this one is easier, as it's just a slightly modified version of the canon Marienburg, though my AltHammer setting will be somewhat different than the official Warhammer setting. So it will be an independent city state with a mixed relationship with the neighboring Empire. Since it's mercenary based, I will have less distinct brigades. Most will be mixed. I will keep the diverse racial composition. But I do have a couple of distinct brigades.

1. Mercenary. The core of the army, diverse troop types.

2. City Militia. Only present in armies directly defending the city and immediate environs.

3. Wood Elf Allies. I have a small 3rd ed. Wood Elf army. May as well use it on occasion.

Wait -- what year is it now?

It lives!

2015, huh? Looks like it's been about two years since the last entry, and even longer since I've played any games. Most of my gaming stuff has been sold off. I've been feeling the itch to jump back in. I miss it. It was my escape, meditation, and mental exercise. My wife even keeps telling me I need to do something to relax before I lose my mind. More. Lose it more is probably more accurate. Before I go full Ben Horne. But that could bring me to the same end, so it may not matter what I do...

Time and money are major roadblocks. That's pretty much the reason I quit gaming and sold off most my miniatures over the past 5 years or so.

I'm considering is trying some solo gaming. I would really prefer a live opponent, but I'm not sure how to swing that. Last week I started talking to a couple of old friends about the possibility of playing some ancients. But the more I consider it, the less practical it seems.

I've been laying out some rough ideas & rules for solo gaming using preexisting game rules. I'm considering both historical (again, probably ancients) and fantasy. In both cases I'm interested in trying out Hail Caesar and Crusader.

In the meantime I have spent a few spare moments finishing off some of the figures I left half-painted years ago. Like these rocket crew.

So who knows. This blog may be back. It may not. I'm trying to squeeze out a little optimism.

2012 Goals in Review

I'm a couple days early, but seeing as nothing gaming related will be happening and I won't likely have much free time to do this for a while, I'll get a head start on the review of my 2012 hobby goals. I tried to make keep them very modest, yet optimistic & attainable. Let's see...



1. Play a game (or games) on at least 12 days this year. That's a game a month goal. I'm only counting my attendance at Cold Wars as a single "day."

Failed. Had three days of gaming: Cold Wars, Grillfest and WFB with TWA.


2. Get at least 8 WWI planes completely finished, get the rest of the stands, a hex mat and play at least one game of Blue Max/Canvas Eagles.

Failed. Not much progress. Still the same two planes mostly finished (still no decals.) Plus a few more assembled but not rigged or painted. I haven't looked in ages, but last few times I was ready to buy the stands, they were out of stock. Looked at options for the hex mat. At this point, I'm scraping money together for the holidays so not likely to buy anything for gaming.


3. Paint Romans, friends and foes. A hold over from the past two years. This year I will even set a modest number. Finish the mostly painted scutarii I started last year, and paint 4 units of Roman legion.

Failed. Didn't touch this project at all. Due to lack of time to play, WAB falling apart, and lack of money, I've sold off my Romans & most of their friends. I still have the Ancient Germans and some of the Gauls. (For now.)


4. Make trees. I've got a kit of deciduous trees. I've had them for a couple years. It's about time I put them together.

Failed. Haven't even thought about this. With almost no gaming or other modeling/painting going on, there doesn't seem to be much point in bothering anyway.


5. Paint a unit of landsknecht pikemen and the pack of casualty figures.

SUCCESS! I did paint the casualties and some of the pikemen. I'm not going to count or get hung up on numbers. But I enjoyed some painting earlier in the year and need to feel some degree of success in this list.




6. Paint the strumpets. I've got 4 of them ready to go on the painting table, from the same range of Reaper figures as the previous civilians. In fact, a few more civilians would be nice as well. Let's say the strumpets plus another 6 civvies.

SUCCESS! Again, not really counting numbers and I do know that I've still got some unpainted civilians. But, again, I enjoyed some painting and made some progress.



So I achieved a 2/3 success rate... if I don't examine the criteria too carefully.

I'm not going to bother making any sort of 2013 goals. It's too depressing, since they would most realistically look like, "Play one game in 2013," and, "Don't sell the last remaining bits of my gaming collection," and even then I'm not sure I could attain those.

I think that I just need to come to an acceptance of the fact that I no longer have the option to have hobbies or other luxuries, and that after 30+ years of gaming, I have to walk away. Really, I've already done so. I just keep looking back and it's rather depressing. I'm not sure there will be any further blog entries, as there's really nothing more to talk about unless I'm trying to sell off the remainder of my collection in the coming months.

What's Going On ZeroTwentythree?

Not really any gaming related news to report. Haven't painted figures nor played a game since the Grillfest.

Work and family responsibilities continue to take up most of my time. My daughter is 15 months old now. She's starting to walk, though with some uncertainty. She still crawls about half the time, presumably because she can do so at an amazing speed compared to the toddling about.

When I can squeeze in some late nights I've been back at the vinyl toys. Just opened an online shop, in fact. (Trying to raise money for a new crib and so I can hopefully afford to buy a few Christmas gifts in the next month or so.) I think some of the appealing things about working on them rather than gaming miniatures is that I am 100% free to do whatever my imagination directs me to, and I also don't feel any pressure to reach any goals (unit, army, figures for a game, etc.)

Below are some of the most recent customs I've done.

Grillfest 2012

For the second time in a month, I played some WFB! That makes 5 games now in the past year... all within a few weeks time. I might be back, time permitting. This time it was with my newer gaming group, B.R.E.W.S. at the fifth annual Grillfest. As with previous years it was WFB (and grilling) during the morning & afternoon, and board games (and grilling) in the evening. WFB was played at 1600 points, I think we had 8 players. A few others couldn't make it til later, we probably had about twice as many people total. A couple of photos from early in the day, before everyone showed up:

We played three rounds. My games were against a witch hunter themed Empire army, mercenary Ogre Kingdoms, and fast (all skirmish or mounted) Dogs of War. Against all odds and thanks mostly to blind luck, I smashed all three opponents and ended up winning the first ever BREWS Cup, photographed below immediately after I got it, but before I had a chance to wash it and pour the beer directly in to it.

As part of the festivities, we have a painted miniature exchange. Bringing a painted figure to trade is part of the "admission price." I posted pics of my contribution previously. This year I came home with a beautiful undeadish conversion of the Archaon figure. My photo doesn't do it justice (I think I still need to work on better lighting.)

Later on, in the boardgame phase of the Grillfest, I got to play the light-hearted King of Tokyo and one of my favorites, Betrayal at the House on the Hill.

I haven't been around much. No time for gaming, record low interest in WFB the past year or so, etc. Plus a few of the other guys (and/or spouses) who aren't around as much showed up too. So it was good to just see everyone, BS about games and not-games alike. I don't get much free time or chances to play games or even just be social anymore... so it was a much needed break. I really need to get more of this sort of thing.



Coincidentally, but unrelated to the Grillfest, I also received one of the few new figures I've bought lately, in the mail on the same day. 

What is it? DemoBot! I have no game use for it, I just love the look of the figure & wanted to paint one up.

TWA WFB 1500 points

Played a two round 1500 point event today with my old gaming group, Twinsburg Wargame Association. They were small & quick games. I was a bit rusty & had to ask more rule questions than I probably should have, but I think it went fairly smoothly for me.

Game 1 vs. Goblins

The game was pretty undecided at first. I thought I was screwed when, after eating the pump wagon and wolves, my elephants (demi-gryps in disguise...) got stuck in a combat with the giant where he rolled the "yell & bawl" result for several turns until I finally broke. My plan was to finish off the giant before the mangler squig could swing around behind me, but instead they got tied up, eventually failed a break test, fled and were run down/eaten by the giant squig(s).

In the center, speaking of squigs, I fought the unit of them with both my spear and greatswords. Eventually the flank unit of night goblins joined in, but broke and fled. The unti in the back panicked at some point, which took several/most of the goblin heroes off the battlefield. That was pretty much the end of the game.

On my left flank, the knignts with grand master, walked over the lone goblin hero and then battled it out with the trolls. I managed to cast Mindrazor on them at one point, which was fun but sort of a bit of overkill. I ended up winning after losing the elephants, but the rest of my army was in good shape compared to the competition.

Game 2, vs. VC

Next game was against the VC. It can be summed up with the single word "attrition," but that might neglect the roles that "grave guard" and "Empire deployment" played in aiding the vampire win.

Initial set up in the first pic, the second pic is about 2 turns into the game.

After discovering the woods were a "venom thicket" the greatswords went on a really bad detour that kept them from bringing their force to bear in any sort of coordinated way with the rest of the army. Perhaps I should have just sucked up the random casualties and continued through the woods.

I had limited ways of dealing with the wraiths, all of which failed initially. I ended up having to charge my IC knights (with grand master with a runefang) laterally between the two battle lines to finally fix the situation. But that left a major clusterfcuk in the center, in which the grave guard got to deal individually with, first, the IC knights & grand master, then the elephants, and finally the greatswords.

To my credit, in spite of my horrible deployment and maneuvers, I caused a lot of damage. Unfortunately the VC spellcasters could raise new troops even faster. So it was a losing battle most of the game. I even successfully cast Pit o Shades several times, but it did me little good.



I need to revise my list a bit for the 1600 point games at the upcoming Grillfest. A few things to consider and, of course, that extra 100 points.