Saturday, October 2, 2021

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.