Dust in the workbench. And dust too.

Holidays are gone, and vacation as well, so it’s back to “work” huh?

I got a few things I’m working on. Specially since last Friday I got a couple of things, some I bought, and one was a late bday present from my brother. Yeah, the really big, heavy, and Khador one.

So on the Warmachine front, I’m having fun drilling all the guns and the waist piece (to make it dismountable) on the Khador Conquest, my biggest Warmachine model to date. Isn’t it a sexy piece of resin and dust?

And speaking of Dust, I got myself the Revised Core set. It’s still a great deal, but not an insane deal like the original Core set (of which I got two, of course). I really like the light walkers I should tell you. Oh, and a friend took pics of some Warfare games we played with the girlfriend over in the vacations, over a nice pool table. Hope she gets them to me soon.

Finally, I am still assembling and basing my two Aleph starters for Infinity. I’m working hard on the bases trying to make them look complex and interesting, but also keeping them as shallow as possible without rising the models more than 1mm. It’s a ruleset thing.

On other news, a friend of mine filmed a game we had between his Cygnar and my Khador. Think I mentioned it before. It’s cute, and has good music and the lists below, but it has no proper battle report of any kind so if you’re inclined to watch some toy soldiers move around here they are. The ending where eSorscha went for the kill is not taped either.

 

Finally!

See? I have been painting. I’m still rocking the old shitty cam, that’s all. But that’s no reason not to upload a few things.

We’ve been getting into Dust Warfare and I went back to my plan of quick and effective paintjobs for them. The quick is accomplished. The effective, well, that’s opinion. Here are the first Axis units I’ve cracked, in about a week and a half.

Two Laser Grenadiers units.

 

A Heavy Recon Grenadier unit.

And my favorite, the Axis Gorillas.

On other news, I’m taking my summer vacation starting tomorrow, and we’re taking Warfare with us for the 15 days in the country. Will be a nice relaxing passtime, and I’m sure we will get to grips with the ruleset once and for all.

Oh, and keep an eye peeled for Jake Thornton’s God of Battles. It seems like finally we will get a modern design applied to mass fantasy battles. Sounds good so far.

 

Going into twelve.

Yes, this is the 2011 review post that usually only the author cares about. But I will make it quick and concise.

I noticed I had no resolutions for this year. I talked about how I managed to fulfill the ones from 2010 (paint lots, play lots more) and it seems I was too busy getting into Warmachine during December/January that I completely forgot about them. Most bloggers out there make loooong lists of things to accomplish during 2012, right below the loooooong list of failed resolutions from 2011. So yeah, let’s not fall for that.

I did paint lots, and I did play lots more. On last December I played my first ever game of Warmachine, and it seems like it’s been ages ago. If you’re wondering, no, my brother didn’t get into it. He has a thing with losing, and after he beat me on my first game I won the next couple, so he decided a game where you can lose was not for him. I did get my girlfriend into WM and another friend though.

That noob on last December turned into a fan. Probably owning about 100 points of Khador, maybe 50 or so of Cryx, a few Trollbloods and a lot of Mercs that will sneak their way into the site (and my army lists) soon enough. I can honestly say it has been the minis game I have played the most in my 15 years of wargaming and by far the one I’ve enjoyed the most.

I posted around 100 posts, so that’s a nice thing. Probably the busiest year since I started this in ’07. I got rid of a lot of armies, both historical and fantasy. It was time to re-focus on my collecting and spending habits, specially when considering playtime.

But the important thing my friend is that I painted around 115 figures. It is definitely not a bad number, considering I don’t play big armies games anymore and most of them are beautiful Warmahordes stuffs.

So for 2012, more games, more painting, more theorymachine while on the bus (when you know the point cost for every model in your army you know you’re in trouble) and hopefully more great fun. With any luck Dust Warfare will be a better game than I hope and I will get to use the nice collection I’ve been amassing just as I rock the Warmachine toys.

Happy new year!

 

A few more bits on Dust Warfare

A new Dust Warfare design diary post was released and this time it does say at least a few things about the design of the coming game. I’m pleasantly surprised to see alternating activations based on C&C (or at least I think so… I’m guessing it’s not alternate activation, rather just not letting players activate their whole armies every turn).

And also a limited reaction system which instead of limited in the things a reacting unit can do, it simply makes the player put a reaction token on the board to note the unit reacted and it cannot do so again. “We cannot let units react all the time cause… um…” Tell that to Infinity man.

Not elegant at all, but whatever works (and bear in mind it IS Andy Chambers designing the game… don’t expect anything too progressive or ground breaking).

So far it looks like taken straight out of Battlefield Evolution, but we’ll see.

 

Design and zombies

I have been reading with great pleasure two very different games. They do have, however, various things in common. I’m talking about Infinity and Force on Force. One is sci-fi, for skirmishes between 10 figures a side with every figure being a single unit. The other one is historical for skirmishes between squads of soldiers. They both share most notable a good system of action/reaction.

I honestly think this is the future of miniature wargames. Whether big players keep designing the same shit they did in the 80’s, or the older more “serious” players in the industry keep rolling on the old-school for old-school’s sake wave of new games with vague rules and lots of ink spent on “the spirit of the game.”

With Infinity and Force on Force (and I’m sure a few others out there I don’t know about) we get the newly paved way for dynamic gaming, a lot fancier and more elegant than THW’s tables filled reaction system. Players are engaged now the complete turn. Tactics become more realistic and less abstract, even with the normal abstractions we need to work around miniature terrain and such.

Every move now needs to be thought first on a logical level, and only then looking at model’s stats or dice probabilities. Terrain is gaining a lot more importance and games will look better because of that.

Same side gaming is becoming more and more “doable” and fun. I think it’s just what the stagnant wargame design scene needs.

On a side note, someone here decided they had too many zombies (“too many zombies”… I know, right?) so he decided to dispose of, let’s say, a couple of zombie horde boxes from Wargames Factory. Yes, the same zombies I ordered a year ago online when the company took a dive and changed my order for lots of Warmachine stuff. Well, those 60 less than stellar (but great to fill a table up) sculpts are now on my possession and yeah, I am designing a zombie game to use them with Dust Tactics figures. Because we all know the world does need another zombie game!

Pics of completely unrelated stuff coming this week.