A Project that Clix

     While on my parental leave I had sometime thinking about the Heroclix, of all things, that I have and what their fate should be. My first thought - besides actually PLAYING heroclix, was to re-base select models to use in Heroscape, something that might one day be of interest to Rosalind? Or anyone else just starting to learn their first tabletop wargame. A quick google search took me to a large database of fan made Heroscape cards for playing super heroes in the game.

     This project I was pretty excited about while away from all my miniatures. Pondering up which villains and super hero squad I would like to paint up for the game. The Sinister Six against Spider-man that has called in the X-men for backup? A rampaging Red Hulk needs to be contained before he destroys have of Manhattan? Could try out just about anything.

    After a bit of jumping in and out of rabbit holes, I stumbled upon Angry Piper's blog. He has a bunch of battle reports, repaints of heroclix, forgotten heroes challenges - sculpting miniatures for lesser know characters in comics. Between Angry Piper and  Carrion Crows Buffet they also use a bunch of good looking Pulp Figures, probably will pick some up eventually. After reading a couple scenarios, it prompted me to pick up Super Mission Force 2nd which he uses for the battle reports. This systems seems like a lot of fun and had lots of creative options for fleshing out any super person you could think of, whether that be an existing trademarked character owned by The Mouse, or fan made. 

    The other side effect of looking through my heroclix, is that I have started borrowing comics from the library, Green Lantern and X-men mostly. For the most part, Yellow (use fear to control) and Green (harness willpower) Lanterns are arch enemies as they are basically polar opposites, but there was a great arc which Guy Gardener, your typical 50's beat cop who plays by his own rules, fights the biggest Yellow Lantern Arkillo without power rings, toppling the top dog to make the others in the corps to fall in line. Majority of what I repainted was heroclix, hope to branch out more... just need to prioritize my collection.

Top: Artocitus - leader of the Red Lanterns, Red Hulk, Arkillo - Second in command of the Yellow Lanterns, Kilowag - Instructor for new Green Lantern recruits 

Bottom: Saint Walker and Guy Gardener - One of four earth lanterns

    Later Green Lantern comics introduced the spectrum of colours each lantern using a specific emotion to create their constructs. Red - Rage, Orange - Greed, Green - Will, Blue - Hope, Yellow - Fear, Purple - Love, and Black - Death, which isn't an emotion but is metal AF!

Some of the other clix I was thinking about rebasing/painting. Still figuring out base sizes for models. With so many clix losing their base, their dials will make great damage dials. I should be busy throughout the winter now. Definitely don't need to BUY anything else.

    Throughout Covid the Regina Central library has been offering free 3D printing, I printed off some smaller things a few months ago. While in Fort Saskatchewan, I might've went a bit overboard with my submissions.... and well, they started charging for the service when they were finished. Shows me not to abuse the system! On the plus side, I got some really good dungeon crawling tiles and graves for some spooky ghosts that might hit the desk in October!

Caverns for In-Person D&D someday...

Close up for detail

    Some more detailed items turn into garbage with the filament printer that the library uses. This sarcophagus turned out well, the corpse has seen better days though! Expect to see these tombs on the Sorrowmourn Choir, Spooktober is coming!

    Previously, I had printed out some more traditional dungeon tiles with which I painted in grays. I wanted these caverns to glow a bit magically, hoping to add some vegetation to the walls, and some mushrooms, probably made with green stuff. 

Shadespire LOS blocking terrain featuring a friendly Gallanghann

    The rest is kind of a hodgepodge of what I have painted up, Orson Krennic had been mostly painted and in pieces on my desk for sometime now, his segmented body laughing at my lack of faith in the Dark Side no longer! The dwarves have been finished for a bit and the Blackstone Fortress Heroes I was hoping to finish off the Cultists with them but they still need more work. 

Krennic with his bodyguard dwarves.

    I was a bit lazy and didn't feel like getting out the BSF tiles for a photo shoot, so Gotfret and Servitor X-101 are hanging out on a Heroclix mat.

    The last thing to mention is a project that I hope to finish for October - which would be Shadows of Brimstone! This dungeon crawler is set in the wild west, where dark stone has been discovered in the near by mines outside of Brimstone. It has been found that these stones have a magic to them. Sadly, this power comes with a price, an explosion rips open a rift between worlds. Now unspeakable demons are flooding out of the mines, it's up to the heroes to close the portals to other worlds. Why not loot some of the precious stones at the same time as well?

Six Tentacles finished.

   We also played Root in our garage at the start of the month, why our garage? Because it seems that our cute furry cats are deadly to my eldest brother, Shawn. 

Here you have the typical "still on speaking terms" picture before the game.

    This was a learning game for both Shawn and Nathan. Shawn played the Marquise de cat and Nathan, the Eyrie dynasty. According to the game, they are the least complex. I would disagree in some way, as the other two factions aren't that hard to handle. 

    

    Eyrie have decrees which dictate what you must do on your turn, otherwise your leader disgraced and you lose victory points. Clearings are broken up into different animals, fox, rabbit, mouse or bird (wild card). One card must be added to the decree each turn, or more if you are insane. Bird cards do help, but they also cost you victory points for each used in the decree. As more turns go on, you have more and more potential that you can't build in a fox clearing as you might have already done that three turns in a row and there aren't any to claim or you can't battle in a certain clearing as the enemies were picked off by that blasted Vagabond's crossbow! Eyrie is simple to understand, but you definitely need to plan your next turn. We did help Nathan out as it was his first game, but this is a tough game to do a tutorial game as one faction can really take off if you aren't watching - like every time Rachel is playing the Woodland Alliance. First games you shouldn't be watching the points anyways right? It's about picking off those industrial cats with a well placed crossbow bolt from the Vagabond.

Next on the Hobby Desk!

    I am getting close to finishing my painting of the core models in Shadows of Brimstone, contrast paints help speed up the process, but it doesn't help when I find more models at Dragon's Den to buy!? Oh well, will most likely get in a solo play soon.

    

Paths to Glory 3rd Edition Campaign

    With 3rd edition coming out, my friend Michael, wanted to run a paths to glory campaign. Something gentle for us to get used to the new rules - also keeping it open for new players in the area to jump in and learn. 

    We would start in August at a 600pt Vanguard list increasing monthly, September Warband 1k, and by October have a 1500pt Brigade. For August I played one game, a beginner game with Xander. I built my list around cavalry, Bladebringers, Seekers and Daemonettes (for the batteline tax). The Bladebringer  Herald on Exalted Chariot, was 60 points too expensive, so I went with the Bladebringer Herald on Seeker Chariot. Just squeezing into the list at a hefty 190 points! 

    Sslithian Luxsion could feel a ripple in the atmosphere atop of her exalted chariot. There was something stirring in the Realm of Ulgu, their search for their Lord of Excess was communicating to his loyal servants. "Our search is nearing an end." Daraetha Heartslake, the Heartseeker, affirmed to the leader of the Pining Thrust. Sslithian smiled, "Don't be so eager to reach the zenith of our journey so quickly. Ghur is such a wretched place, full of creatures that are blemish on life, murdering and eating, no grace or finesse." Looking over the vegetation littered clearing, kruleboyz camped out gorging their selves on weak prey, no thought or reasoning to their slaughter, she felt the yearning call of her master. His need for overindulgence, massacres, debauchery, idolizers and Sslithian would give all that her master desired, and it wouldn't be a quick death for these fowl foes.

Battlepack

Xander rolled off to see which mission we would be playing, I don't recall the name, and don't have the core rules (only the smaller version - which doesn't include battlepacks or the path to glory rules) But the objective was for the attacking player to get half their force to their opponent's deployment zone. After rolling of for roles, I won and chose to be the attacker. 

Forces

Pining Thrust - Slaanesh

Sslithian Luxsion - Bladebringer Herald on Exalted Chariot (190 pts)

Daraetha Heartslake - Seekers x 10 (300 pts)

Terashon Mhal'Pr'athis - Daemoettes (110 pts)

Total - 600 pts

Da Pale Boys - Kruleboyz

Killaboss on Great Gnashtoof  (200 pts)

Gutrippaz (180 pts)

Hobgrots Slittaz (95 pts)

Man-skewer Boltboyz (120 pts)

Total - 595 pts

    On the initiative, Slaanesh won, also choosing to go first, like the greedy daemons they are. Seekers and Daemonettes advanced up the flanks, they they both could run and still charge later in the turn.

First round setup

Seekers quickly close in on their prey.

    

    Seekers move at 14" and they get to roll 2D6 instead of D6 for their run, making it super easy for them to sprint right across the board in the first turn and charge! Unlike all my other units, the Chariot could instead retreat and charge on the same turn. I moved it up, because caution is for chumps, and my daemonettes, bless their good intentions, tried to tie up the Gutrippaz. 

Chariot hiding till next turn.

    My Seekers and my Daemonettes had charged into battle on the same turn, choosing to attack first with the Seekers, meant that the Daemonettes fought after the Gutrippaz. These cruel orks tore them to shreds with their 6's to hit cause mortal wounds. Xander had rolled 9!? 6s on his first swing. Yeouch! The remaining single Daemonette didn't roll a 1 on her mortal test to blink back more daemons into existence. I forget if she survived for a turn or not, as Depravity Points are based on how many models less a unit has, in this case 9 points! 

    The Seekers did some damage, suffering a couple loses, by the bottom of turn 1, I had around 20 DP. At the end of next turn's movement, my hero could summon one unit to the battlefield. To put this into perspective, a Keeper of Secrets was worth 12 Depravity Points. Lucky for Xander, I am poor and don't own a Keeper, so instead a unit of 5 Seekers were spawned.

Turn 1 Orks

       Gutrippaz charged into combat with the Chariot, lucky for her, there was WAY less 6s being tossed around. Striking hard at the orks, but they were tough at two wounds a piece. Sslithian slaughter close to half before running away, summoning Seekers the next turn.

    As always when I have the choice of winning a game or asking myself What Would Slaanesh Do? I retreated from one battle only to CHARGE right back into the remaining Boltboyz and Hobgrots on the opposite flank hoping to fight with the big bad Killaboss too!

I believe the wounds were counting up, otherwise this would have been more silly.

    Sslithian's chariot bounded over the uneven terrain, tearing up dirt and foliage as it crossed to meet the Killaboss. The Gnashtoof growled as the Seekers neared, gnashing at one of the front mounts. Sslithian cracked her whip across the Killaboss' chest. Furious, the savage ork ignited his jagged boss-stikka, flames licking the air around it. His wide swing toppled riders from the Chariot, sending it off a deep ravine. Shaken, the crew gathers up the Seekers, and the mistress to fight another day. Sslithian felt she was off her game, maybe she was more excited then she let on to see Slaanesh back in the mortal realms again.

    With only one unit reaching the opponent's deployment zone - they need to be 9" away from enemies and stay for one turn if I recall. We didn't count summoned units as part of half of my army, but either way I would have needed 2 units to stay alive for a turn in Xander's side.

    Clearly, that did not happen. But it was fun playing the hedonites, glass cannons for sure.

Next on the Hobby Desk

    I haven't had another chance to play in the Path to Glory campaign, Rachel had a minor surgery at the beginning of August. Which meant no bending or like picking up a 15lb baby, pretty hard when you breastfeed a baby several times a day. Rachel is doing much better now. I have a bunch of painting to show off, and also a bunch of purchases from over the summer.

How I spent my summer parental leave

         In Saskatchewan there is a new(ish) parental leave system in place for fathers to take 5 weeks of parental leave. This doesn't affect the mother's maternity allowance, and it can be split up or taken in once giant chunk. Naturally, with two brothers being teachers, I was always jealous of their 2 months vacation. Now I get to have a month off in July!

    For the last four years, my parents have been renting cabins at different parks for a few days every summer. Went to Waskesiu this year, each household got their own cabin, just in case the Covid restrictions suddenly became much more strict. Everyone in the family was fully vaccinated by the beginning July, most two weeks post as well.

    Prince Albert National Park, has the boreal forest surrounding you on your drive into the park. Larch trees and pine trees stand as sentinels for eager explorers in deep reverence for these ancient growths. 

    My family fell in love with Waskesiu in 2018 the first time most of us experienced it's majesty - despite the lousy rainy weather which lasted almost the whole first week of July. Rachel and I traveled back in 2020 in the fall to witness the rich tapestry of fall colours on the larch trees, we even met a new fox "friend" 

Foxy friend just wanting food

View in the fall on Height of Land lookout tower

Boundary Bog Trail

    This year was much better, only raining a couple of times. We didn't go on as many hiking trails, but there was some swimming in their crystal clear lakes and hammock time. Much to Rachel's mild displeasure, Bauche's are pretty laid back, so much so that we would just agree with any and all activities. ("We can do that or that, whichever you want to do.") I think this is mostly due to how little we actually saw each other throughout the pandemic, so hanging out and talking felt like catching up for a year of isolation. Rachel might disagree, saying we are always non-committal.

    So far, every trip to Waskesiu has an Elk walking through our cabins. I mean they were here first, he was probably checking out his old mating grounds. 

    I took basically zero photos while out on trails or at the beach, so enjoy photos from the shutterbugs in my family.

My sister in-law entertaining Rosalind in the hammock

Checking out the beach with mom

View from parent's cabin, definitely didn't look like THAT cabin

Candid papa photo, this was after Rosalind's walk with Uncle Shawn, so she was getting a bit hungry.

Staple Height of Land Outlook Tower photo

    Originally, the plan was to visit Rachel's family, after our Waskesiu trip, all over British Columbia and Alberta, showing off Rosalind - now 4 months old as of writing. Where does the time go!? 

    While in Waskesiu, Rachel's mother had a major surgery so we went to Fort Saskatchewan to help out the following weeks. Doctor's orders was no bending or lifting and you know lots of rest.

    During out stay in Alberta, we visited a few places, I found a gaming store right in the Fort. It was carrying Everdell, which Rachel as been wanting since the beginning of the pandemic. Alberta's Covid restrictions were lifted at the beginning of July, so the store had events without masks. In fact, I was the only person in the hobby stores with a mask on. 

    Juggling baby schedule and adult schedule, we made it into Edmonton for one day - if you go to Edmonton and DON'T do a Ikea trip, did you really go? Yes, but we didn't want to find out and they had air conditioning for a baby Tula walk instead of in the blazing sun. 

    Industrial Park Games was the one hobby store I wanted to check out, it was well reviewed and lined up with our southern route through the city we were planning to use. With so many options, I wanted to be as quick with the hobby browsing as possible, one and done. My wallet would thank me. 

    The new Age of Sigmar tiered starter sets were supposed to be out, after much debate, I would only sample the new models and get the Warrior set. With the Warrior set, you get the sweet Killaboss and the Knight-Arcanum. Vindictors don't have too much Sigmar iconography on them, making them perfect to be come kitbashed Myrmidesh Painbringers or Chaos Chosen? Could even use the kit's spears and weapons on the lamer posed Liberators I have collecting dust.

    While I was in IPG, Rachel did some quick googling to find, The Clumsy Dragon Tabletop Guild. It was right on the way to Ikea, it would be fine to deviate a little.

    Still in the heart of the industrial area, this store had a small retail area up front and a large warehouse in the back for a subscription gaming club area. For a monthly fee, gamers have access to terrain, tables, painting supplies, and 3D printed models which could be bought after painting them. Really great place, focusing on building community in the Edmonton area. I really liked the setup and had a good chat with the owner, highly recommend checking it out if you live in the city.

    This was the haul that I picked up, the Age of Sigmar Warrior box was from Dragon's Den in Saskatoon. All the other places had Dominion, but their starters weren't shipped out in time. The Sentinels of Order hasn't been in stock anywhere I have looked, glad to finally pick it up. And hey, might as well get a Death Guard codex in Alberta for lower sales taxes. Was hoping to play a casual tournament in Estevan, which is why I grabbed the codex, but we had some health concerns to look after when we got home. The Tournament also was focused on being beginner friendly, but asked people to bring 2000pts? That seems like a big ask for people just learning the hobby. Epic Encounters has some pretty sweet looking Snakefolk.

    

    Resident Evil 2 expansion was 50% off at IPG, it adds two survivors - Hunk, an Umbrella agent attempting to flee a zombie infested Raccoon City with a stolen sample of the T-virus and Tofu - a parody character of Hunk, who is a giant walking piece of Tofu that only had a knife to fight off the horde.

    The drive to Alberta was quite hot in mid-July, by the end of the month it was cooler. We didn't have air conditioning, so we left early so that I could start the journey home as the girls slept in the back. 

Rosalind was pumped to cross the border into her birth province

    We still had 6 hours of driving to go, but did Rosalind care? She slept great for such long drive, only needing to 2 stops to tank up. It was nice to see family and friends in another province, but we definitely missed our cats and I'll miss my summer off, back to work now. 

Next on the Hobby Desk

One of my friends, Michael, has organized a Paths to Glory campaign that started once I got back home. It will be running for 3 months, increasing in points each month. First game was the day after we got back, small game to try out 3rd edition, only 600pts. Should be posting it soon. 

What's this? There's colour everywhere!?

    My painting habits have gone WiLdlY out of control! I started out painting some Rising Sun, Koi Clan Bushi. Finishing most of the ones I was working on, I moved on to making some animals for PrimeEVO. Then switched to Warhammer terrain as I was cleaning out my hobby hole, and back and forth. What!? Dwarves? WHO INVITED DWARVES!? 

    This was also over a month or so, with baby, work and a good smattering of video games to distract me. Heck it took me like a week to actually take pictures of the stuff I finished, wearing a baby while shooting photos near the natural light, does not good bedfellows make. So without further a due, here is my showcase of mostly random stuff I have been tossing paint on.

    These Sector Fronteris Environment terrain were from the Theta-7 Acquisitus Kill Team box. They popped onto the paint table after I cleaned up my hobby desk, noticing how little work that needed to be done to them to get them onto the table. The Tech-priest has been completed for my Crusade last year, the 3 ruststalkers are primed, don't think the Infiltrators are off their sprue yet. Eventually, I'll get around to making a Kill Team out of them. No plans to make full units for 40k, so might just do two Infiltrators.

Front

Back

    Besides Slaanesh models this year, Blackstone Fortress figures are hitting the table. In heavy doses of FOMO and wanting to support Comic Readers at the start of the pandemic. I picked up Escalation, then Ascension, and The Dreaded Ambull (the latter being from Dragon's Den as it was sold out in Regina) throughout the lock down.

    Escalation will be prioritized first, being filled with sweet miniatures and required for Ascension. The Ambull was painted with contrast paints, for a quick paint job. 

    All the Escalation kit has been assembled, the Crusader being the first to be painted.

    Besides battling rival tribes in PrimEVO, the primatives will take on deadly prehistoric beasts for the betterment of their tribe, using their bones, meat and fur for survival in the wild.

Prehistoric Deer

    I went the cheap way with these figures, buying them from toy stores instead of an actual hobby store. Scale might be a bit off for some but whatcha going to do? Could be fully grown or infant age.

Generally in PrimEvo, before setting up, players would determine a size of a herd of deer, mammoths, etc. I felt that I could still do this, but add some variety of what herbivores were around, instead of just all deer. Prehistoric mammals would all be mostly around the same watering hole. 

Ground Sloths were all made in China.

    I decided a Macrauchenia would be the closest looking mammal for the "elephant", which in fact is actually thought to be a relative to a llama. Guess I should have checked what it might be before painting it like an elephant. 

A couple more deadly hunts.

    And what's a prehistoric skirmish game without some deadly creatures to maim your tribes? The woolly mammoth, is definitely a youth, I'll need to find a much older (and larger) parental unit. 

    A few more prehistoric mammals, and dinosaurs are on the workbench. Would be nice to get several more painted up to really fill out the table. The Zulu tribesman from frostgrave might work for a rival tribe, might as well get paint on them too! 

    While putting off this blog update, seriously, like a month since I had opened this post!? , I have painted up a few more models, a Lord of Pain is now ready to take to the battlefield.

sorry about the quick pics.

    I did paint a couple dwarves for Song of Blades and Heroes but I'll post them once I get the warband finished off. Why do fantasy vikings, when you can do sci-fi vikins? While procrastinating on dwarves, my accidental eBay purchase arrived. I can bid on this, clearly, I won't win it, right? Awhile ago, I had picked up some Grey Hunters for possibly making into a Kill Teams with possible options for gun loadouts. Terminators would really be cool to add to a Kill Team as well would they? Anyways, here I am, 4 Space Wolves Terminators richer, only one painted for Kill Team so far.

Brother Brand "Fiery Torch", Brother Manning, and Brother Steinar

Brother Amund - Leader

The crew ready to cleanse a derelict Space Hulk 

    I painted up all the fun weapon loadouts first, it just squeaks into a regular list of Kill Team at 99 points. I don't really have a Commander to add to this warband, as most of the options are Primaris marines which would look a bit tall to their elderly brethren. The Terminators that remain all have boltguns with chainfist or power fist and don't have as much Space Wolfie-ness to them. That is, till I add a pelt with greenstuff or find bits.

    Now why do you have your Space Wolves Kill Team on a Space Hulk board? Well, a bit of a long story, as went down three or four rabbit holes, then through a swamp and past grandma's house to end up here. I started by looking up Stormtonnian models as I was debating on buying one of the older starter sets after buying Sorrowmourn Choir. Anyways, I found, Tears of Envy's blog, which might make me want to collect some Stormcast for kitbashs, maybe do some chaos stormcast too? 

    After looking back in the blog, I found some amazing looking Space Hulk 3D terrain, mostly kit bashed from several other terrain kits. 3rd party custom rules also were on my mind as well, like adding different chapters, factions and the like into Space Hulk. This will definitely be a long hole to dig myself out of.

Oh yeah, reading to Rosalind is the other hobby of mine I have been working on.

Next on the Hobby Desk

    Time to finish up the dwarves? I have will eventually pick up the new rule book for Age of Sigmar. That might wait till August when GW announces the new smaller starter sets. Part of the reason for my frantic hobby habits, might partially be due to not getting games in, might need to fix that.