IKRPG: Cairnholm Campaign

Our office Iron Kingdoms RPG game kicked off a couple of weeks ago, with Sean running us through the "Fools Rush In" adventure which then spring boarded into his own campaign based around the city of Cairnholm in Ord. You can follow the antics here on Sean's website.

In the meantime I have largely abandoned my plans to have much of anything painted in time for Choptober, instead spending my time painting up my RPG figure (a wise choice since I never finished my figure for Sean's last 4th Ed D&D campaign). I started off with the IKRPG figure "Valeria Alvaro", cut away her hair, added part of a Warcaster backpack, re sculpted the hair and part of her scarf. The sculpting was not flash (definitely not one of my skills) but looked good enough once painted to turn the figure into Alexis, the Llaelese Warcaster/Pistolier. I also added the banner from the alternate sculpt of Ashlynn D'Elyse (which Victor had spare) to give her a distinctive look, as well as making it abundantly clear where her allegiance lies.

Next up I have a Vanguard that I bought for Zerkova's tier list that I will paint up for when/if Alexis acquires a 'jack of her own. My plan is to use the same airbrushing technique that I used on the flag, but then give it a good working over with some of the MiG and AK Interactive washes to give it a real battle worn look. Although that might have to wait a little while as I have some work painting that needs to be much higher up on the priority list!

Iron Kingdoms RPG

With Sean and Victor heading off to PAX, I nicely asked them to pick up some phat loots for me - the Iron Kingdoms RPG. Unfortunately some baggage guys in the US had other plans!

Misplaced!

Luckily it arrived in hand a few days later, leaving me with a good 24 hours of fondling! It is a weighty tome of a book, plenty of great fluff for the WarmaHordes geek, character generation has been covered forward and back on various blogs and it is as good as everyone says. Plenty of variation, plenty of character ideas leaping to mind. Victor is going to run a campaign for us once Sean's existing D&D game runs its course and I am really excited - currently trying to decide if I want to play a Ogrun Mighty Man at Arms Field Mechanic (big "tank" style of character, upfront taking the hits with a 'Jack in support), or something that likes to lurk a little further back, letting others take the hits. So many choices!

As for all the other projects on my desk I have not been terribly active, to much time playing with the new miniature  :)

Christmas is coming...

With Christmas just around the corner a wargamer turns to such thoughts as.... so what projects will I start over this holiday and not get finished! At least I do anyway. Its been a long year and I am really looking forward to Christmas as an opportunity to (hopefully) finish off some projects that have been sitting in my WIP list for way too long and with three weeks off this could be my chance.

Top of the list has to be my Dystopian Wars Prussian fleet. I made such great progress on them earlier in the year (and they are easy to paint), but they have been a challenge to find the enthusiasm to kick start again. Worst of all Spartan Games keep putting out more great looking ships (oh the hardship).

Next is my French EW Compagnie de Chasseurs Portes. These are Confident Trained guys running round in armoured halftracks and they look super cool. I've got a pile of Evan's new sculpts (which are perfect for these guys as they don't have the greatcoats) and I am working on a test stand now. Of course I have to have the army finished for Battlecry in February 2012.

I've signed up to do an article for the website looking at how to enhance the new range of Desert Buildings, so now that its in print I guess I had better make sure I get that done over the break. Mike put together an awesome article for WI about the tweaks you can make to really make the Desert Terrain range pop, so I plan on stealing a few of his ideas. As a bonus the terrain will work well for Force on Force too!

Speaking of Force on Force... I'd really like to finish my US Marines. Now that I have a paint scheme I am happy with, and know I can knock them out really quickly I would like to put a tick in that box.

Next up... eBaldur for Warmachine. Sean, Victor and I have to defend out Warmachine Teams Tournament record (last.... but we did it in the nicest possible way) and we are all bringing along Hordes forces this year. There is a great article about converting Megalith (eBaldur's best friend) and making him look a little more natural so I am guessing I'll need to take a look at that. I'll be using Equinox in mid March as my test event prior to the teams tourney.

Last project on the list is to finish assembling and painting some Perry Miniatures American Civil War buildings. These look great (although can be a little fiddly to put together) and will do nicely for some Wild West action next year. I've got plenty of barrels and fences as well so we should be able to have a good gun fight or two, with plenty of obstacles to hide behind.

Phew.... that's a lot of stuff! And of course somewhere in there I need to fit in all the chores around the house that my wife will be expecting. Thank goodness I managed to resist purchasing The Old Republic or I would have never gotten anything done.

And on the lighter side, looks like Sean has been up to his old tricks again...

Iron Painter 2011

This weekend (in fact right now even) a few of us from the office are doing a 24 hour painting challenge to paint a 500 point Raiding (or Garrison) Force from Burning Empires. I'm doing a Compagnia Mitraglieri which has a couple of platoons of infantry, a platoon of artillery and some AS37 Autosaharianas. 16 hours in (almost 4 in the morning) and its not looking too flash I have to say... I have 20 stands of infantry or guns to knock out by midday....

Here is a before shot of the AS37 platoon - an after shot will be up later in the week. For more info check out the Flames of War website though.

And for something a little lighter.... Sean was clearly having a bad afternoon on Friday. Although the other guy in the comic looks particularly charming!