Da Boyz Are Back In Town

 It's been more than a minute since I played some GorkaMorka, but it's 2023 and here we are.

I got my Nob, Spanner, and first 3 Boyz done.

HEY KIDS!  REMEMBER WHEN MINIATURE GAMES WERE JUST SILLY FUN?!

More GorkaMorkaing tomorrow.

-Jay

The Exiled Dead

 It's been a little way since I got paint on any miniatures but as luck would have it I had a box of miniatures that I have stats for in 3 different games (and they also feel like they'll fit great in RPGs as well).  Say hello to The Exiled Dead!

These figures are a Warhammer Underworlds release, but I had forgotten that I had gotten a White Dwarf awhile back that also had their stat cards for Warcry, and like most (all?) Underworlds releases their rules for Age Of Sigmar are available for free online.  In addition to their intended Games Workshop uses I feel like these would be a great as constructs in the Ravenloft domain of Lamordia.

I got The Exiled Dead from my friendly local game store, please remember to support your FLGS as well.

Thanks for checking in.

-Jay

Kill Team: Imperial Navy Breachers (Part Two)

 Back with the rest of my Imperial Navy Breacher Kill Team.

The Grenadier is exactly what it says on the tin.

This model is really interesting and well detailed and does a great job of showing how much Games Workshop has learned about model design.  This isn't the first GW figure I've gotten that has a replacement chest piece, but (previously) they always looked like a proper figure with an extra piece just glued over top, in this case they designed the extra chest armour to have its buckles and straps where the armour flares out.  So basically they conceal one of the shortcomings of this type of figure design by sculpting an extra bit of detail to make the whole thing feel more 'real'.

The Endurant is one of the figures that really got noticed during the teasers.

In the game the Endurant is really slow but holy cow is he awesome when paired up with other figures!  The Endurant has a 2+ save and can be used to lead other figures through the Gallowdark who then benefit from his crazy high defense.

The Surveyor is a techie character.

The Surveyor operates The C.A.T. an exploration robot that has it's origins in Space Hulk, which is a nice wink and a nod to the original GW game of Imperial Troops fighting xenos in claustrophobic environment.

Last but not least we have the Void Jammer.

The Void Jammer is similar to The Surveyor in that he comes with a little attendant robot friend.  The Gheistskull has various abilities to disrupt enemy troops but if I'm being honest I haven't really figured out how to get best use out of this combo.

So that's it for my Imperial Navy Breachers.

I really like both the look and the rules for these figures.  They were a ton of fun to paint and although I'm still figuring out how best to use them I'm enjoying exploring their rules.

Six more days until these figures land in your Friendly Local Game Store!

-Jay

 

Kill Team: Imperial Navy Breachers (Part One)

 Kill Team has been seemingly one of Games Workshop's most successful iterations of their grimdark sci-fi universe over the past few years.  Honestly up until a few years ago I didn't really find Kill Team appealing as it felt (to me anyway) like a cut-down version of 40K without any real appeal of its own.  More recently Kill Team has become a game in it's own right that's ties to 40K are narrative and visual rather than mechanical.  I have really enjoyed engaging with the Warhammer 40,000 IP in a way that is disconnected from it's main game.

Going up for pre-order today is Kill Team Into The Dark which is thematically AWESOME!  It's basic setting is a space hulk (a giant derelict abandoned space ship) being explored for lost technology and secrets.  It's meant to be a claustrophobic gaming experience that captures a feel extremely similar to the first two Alien/s movies.  Having played my first two games I can say it does a great job of 'feeling' like the setting it's meant to portray.  The box game set comes with some fantastic looking space hulk scenery as well as two opposing forces; The Kroot, and the Imperial Navy Breachers.

I painted up the Imperial Navy Breachers.  Troopers who specialize in boarding actions and naval warfare.  For those familiar with traditional 40K armies Navy Troopers are normal humans like Imperial Guardsmen but are drastically better equipped bordering on the level equipment possessed by the genetically super-human Space Marines.  These figures are absolutely fantastic!  I used to work for Games Workshop years ago and in the 13 years since I left I've got to say the quality of their models has gone through the roof.  Here we go...

My Kill Team is led by a Sergeant-At-Arms.

This Sergeant is armed with a Bolt Pistol and although there are enough extra heads to have any of your troopers helmetless I only chose that option for my Sergeant to make her stand out from her troops.

Two basic Arnswomen.

The basic Naval Trooper is armed with a shotgun which works well up close and given the environment the game is set in has few disadvantages in most scenarios.

Axe-Jack!

The Axe-Jack looks cool and I should have spent less time during my first game looking at how cool I thought it was and should have read how cool it actually was.  When the Axe-Jack can get into a dense group of enemies he can do catastrophic amounts of damage.

Gunner.

The Gunner is the heavy weapon wielder of the Navy.  This model posses a real choice for the player.  The box offers a melta-gun and plasma-gun as options which have certain limitations (primarily range) in conventional 40K games but that is far less of an issue in Into The Dark games.  The laser weapon I took has tons of shots at longer range but that's of little practical benefit in the setting I'm playing in, it functions as more of an area denial weapon than an active offensive weapon.

Chainfist armed Hatchcutter.

The unquestioned MVP of my first two games was the Hatchcutter.  The Hatchcutter can breach walls and create openings that his fellow Naval Troopers can move through.  It allows the Breacher player to control the board significantly more than their opponent.  I really enjoyed how the Hatchcutter played but if I'm being 100% honest I'm pretty sure the way the rule for breaching is worded will get a slight change in an FAQ at some point at which time the Hatchcutter will still be highly effective but less so than it is now.

These models are absolutely fantastic and unfortunately my photography really doesn't do them justice.  I'll be back tomorrow with the rest of the team and if you're reading this post the day of posting your friendly local game store just started taking pre-orders for Kill Team Into The Dark today!

Support your FLGS and I hope to see you back tomorrow!

-Jay

The Silver Bayonet - British Warband and an assortment of monsters

 I finally got around to playing my first few games of The Silver Bayonet by Osprey Games.  For those not familiar The Silver Bayonet is a skirmish level wargame set against the backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars.

Although the mechanics of the rules are different than Frostgrave the structure of the game and it's scenarios are very similar.  To that end I'm planning on painting all the monsters needed for the 14 scenarios in the game as well as a few odds and ends from the random encounter table.  This will also be the kickoff for my plan to start building a collection of historic based/themed fantasy figures not only for The Silver Bayonet but for an assortment of other games and scenarios I'm planning on playing this year.

First up my Silver Bayonet Warband is led by Lt Archibald Tavington III.  Archie is a proper gentleman on loan from the 95th rifle regiment.

Along with their Lieutenant four rifleman have been seconded to the unit to explore and battle the unknown.  Two of the riflemen are by Warlord Games and two of them are from Perry Miniatures.

Accompanying the chosen men of the 95th is Doctor Theodore Theopolis.  The good doctor is proper soldier and in addition to his medical skills is not afraid to use his pistol to see off any hobgoblins that might be found harassing the countryside.

Lastly Angus McHaggis is a highlander from Scotland.  Angus keeps to the old ways and carries a great claymore to mete out the king's justice to the forces of the unnatural.

For my first batch of baddies I painted a bunch of Dark Wolves.  For these models I used the WizKids wolves.  The thing I like best about these wolves is that they scale properly with 28mm figures as they are the size of a large dog, and not the size of a horse that could be ridden by a man-sized figure.

Next up are the goblins.  I used the Hobbit Escape From Goblintown goblins which are some of my favourite goblin figures EVER.  I have used these for a bunch of other projects and I'm sure I'll continue finding more uses for these excellent figures.

No horror game set in this era would be complete without ghosts.  Again WizKids had the perfect ghosts.  These are great transparent figures that fit the theme of the game perfectly.  I particularly like the ghost lady carrying her severed head and floating through the headstone.

One of the figures I struggled with the most was the Hobgoblin.  The description of the Hobgoblin in The Silver Bayonet doesn't really match the design or aesthetic of any of the hobgoblin miniatures I am aware of.  I decided to ignore the names on packages and actually landed on a Reaper orc that seemed like a perfect fit for the description in the game.  I'm really happy with how this figure turned out and could see adding more of these style orcs down the road.

One of the other models I struggled with was finding an appropriately scaled Scarecrow.  Surprisingly (to me at least) most of the Scarecrow miniatures on the market are surprisingly large and over-scaled compare to man-sized figures.  Once again WizKids had a model that was both a great size and had a nice look to it.

I'm off to a pretty good start.  I have a few more packs/units of monsters to add as well as a bunch more single figure entries to be completely ready for the full campaign.  I'm hoping to get at least another dozen miniatures done this week, and then I might switch gears to scenery next week just to change things up.

And as always remember The Silver Bayonet and all the miniatures I've painted here are available from your friendly local game store.

Thanks for checking in,

-Jay

Battle In Balin's Tomb - Team Evil

One of the interesting ideas that Games Workshop has been exploring in the past few years is producing hybrid board/miniature games using pre-existing models in smaller packaging at a lower price point.  To be honest most of those hybrid games haven't really appealed to me because I'm not their target audience (they're really designed to introduce non-gamers to hobby gaming) and if I was excited about the miniatures those games contain I would already own them.  The break in that trend and the game that finally drew me in was Battle In Balin's Tomb.  Lord Of The Rings was one of Games Workshop's biggest sellers during my time in the company and to be honest in the early 2000's it was my favourite GW rules system.  It's one of the few GW games I've kept up with consistently since leaving the company, and I still semi-regularly play Legends Of The Old West which uses the Lord Of The Rings core mechanics.  But I digress...

Battle In Balin's Tomb is the third box game to use the Moria Goblin plastics (one of the first Lord Of The Rings releases in 2000), and the second box game to use the highly underrated Fellowship Of The Rings plastic models.  The game itself is extremely basic, using a Heroquest-esque combat dice mechanic to play a 12 turn skirmish on a board largely devoid of features.  If you're new to hobby games or a big Lord Of The Rings fan and you want a simple introductory game with a fantastic selection of models this game is a great choice, if you're looking for an engaging strategy game that's honestly not what this is here for.

I'm looking forward to playing some games of Battle In Balin's Tomb with my daughter and possibly my niece over the Christmas season.  They are both squarely in the wheelhouse of the target audience for the game, both big fantasy movie fans, both like miniatures, and neither are interested in a complex game system.  I decided to start off by painting team Evil;  12 Moria Goblins, and the amazing and underrated Cave Troll model.

Moria Goblins with shields

Moria Goblins with spears

Moria Goblins with bows

Cave Troll

Team Evil!

That's basically half the box painted, I'm hoping to paint the Fellowship by Wednesday.

I'll show some more new/old models later this week and hopefully have a game to tell you about next week!

Battle In Balin's Tomb should be available now from your FLGS

-Jay

Shadow Throne

 The invasion has already begun....

After a few years of not playing any of Games Workshop's 'core' games my buddy Ash has decided to pull me back in.  It's been a while since I collected anything new for 40K but as staunchly Imperial player for my 30ish years in the game I figured a new collection of the Imperium's finest citizens on Earth was the perfect place to start.  What's great is (based on my understanding) the figures on the new Shadow Throne box set will also make an excellent starting force if I want to play Necromunda or Kill Team as well.  Such is the glory of humanity's great Four-Armed Emperor!  Praise be to him!

I started off by painting the 10 loyal Imperial citizens working in the mines.

These brave souls have picked up their mining implements as well as some light weapons left behind by the local PDF to arm themselves to see off any threats to the great Emperor.  Praise be to him!

Next is a leader.  We call him the foreman but for some reason we have heard the forces of the oppressor refer to him as a Primus.

If you can't already tell we are truly blessed in the holy light of The Emperor.  Many non-believers suffer from pale pallid flesh but those of us who reside in the graces of the one true Emperor of mankind maintain our healthy pink skin even after generations working underground in the hive mines.

The Four-Armed Emperor has also seen fit to send up a true prophet, one who can work great miracles in the Emperor's name.  Behold the glory of our good and fair Magus.

The Magus shares his many gifts with us.  And as he is truly touched and blessed by the Emperor he has gifts so share with even non-believers.

To aid in our clearing of the mines a new friend has joined our ranks.  Her job is to reduce the rocks and debris that stand between us and the Emperor's bounty, though the oppressors call her Reductus Saboteur.

Her third arm must truly be a sign that she is growing closer to our great Four-Armed Emperor.  Oh praise be to him!

And finally unlike the forces of the false Emperor who claim to worship a desiccated husk on a golden throne our TRUE Four-Armed Emperor appears before us and joins us when we face troubles.

BASK IN HIS MAGNIFICENT BEAUTY!

We have already begun spreading the joy and love of our Emperor throughout the homeworld.  We look forward to welcoming all of you into the flock soon.

To join our flock please contact your FLGS where Shadow Throne will be available for sale this coming Saturday.

-Neophyte Brother Jay