When it rains it pours (in a good way!)

I haven't gotten as much painting as usual done this past week for the weirdest reason ever...I've been gaming...too much?

Normally my life gives me lots of opportunities to paint when I'm home with my family but getting out and devoting hours to playing is a bit beyond my schedule.  A normal rotation for me is that I get to play 1 game a week, frequently less.  In the past 5 days I've managed to play 4 games!

Sunday Ash and I wrapped up our Swineland campaign for This Is Not A Test.  I'm not going to give away the outcome but it was an awesome game where we both had our moments in the sun and every die-roll counted.  It was bittersweet to say good-bye to a campaign that has been so much fun but the best stories end before they jump the shark.  I'm looking forward to more This Is Not A Test in the near future as both the game-play and post game do a great job of telling a compelling story.

Sunday I also got to play my second game of the new/current version of Pulp City.  The Supreme Alliance once again took it to their cold war foes The Red Republik.  Now that I'm getting a bit more  used to the rules I'm really enjoying the game mechanics and looking forward to trying out some more new models.  I think I'm going to revisit my old models and maybe finally paint enough models from the Heavy Metal faction to make it a playable force.

Monday I DM'd the latest session in my Curse Of Strahd game.  The tone has changed a lot over the last two sessions. early on the game was heavy on exploration, discovery and an overwhelming fear of what was happening.  The party has now recovered some of the relics scattered about the domain and are seeing more combat.  Last session they got a bit lucky as they found their way into a conflict between two opposing faction and came within one decision of a TPK.  Victory was snatched from the jaws of defeat!

Last night I finally played my first game of Broken Contract.  It went the way of most of my first games of anything where I got a few rules wrong as I learned the game but I can say that by the second turn of the game Ash and I were getting it right and it felt very intuitive.  I'm looking forward to playing through the rest of the missions!

And that was my week of more than the normal amount of gaming.  I don't anticipate another week this game heavy for a while but I should be back to my paint table tonight!

-Jay

Wrapping up Black Squadron for Broken Contract before moving on to my Breakers

Last year I started working on my Black Squadron Security forces for Broken Contract.  My thought at the time was that I would both use them as Peacekeepers for This Is Not A Test and that eventually I would actually play some games of Broken Contract.  Well "eventually" is now five days away and I realised tonight that I never painted the last 2 models for my faction.

First up is Xer the Gen-Mod (genetically modified).  Gen-mods are artificially enhanced troopers and workers that are physical behemoths.  Xer is on a 40mm base and is roughly twice the size of a regular figure.  At the time I started painting Broken Contract figures I knew Xer would be the last figure I painted because I didn't have an immediate use for him for This Is Not A Test.  In hindsight I regret putting him off, he was definitely the figure in the collection I've enjoyed painting the most.  He's got a great deal of texture and is both extremely well sculpted and extremely well cast.

Smythe is an overseer for the security forces which basically means his job is to oppress miners.  Smythe is another nicely detailed figure with manacles, and a low-profile headset.

Part of moving Broken Contract back to front-of-mind for me was that the game's creator Nick Baran has just launched a Kickstarter for the rulebook and game collateral (which is also another great opportunity to buy these awesome figs).
Check out his Kickstarter at:  
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/401223236/broken-contract-rulebook

Nick is a great guy and I hope you'll all take a minute to check out an emerging product from a legitimate start-up company trying to find their place in our awesome hobby.

-Jay

First civilian models/counters for Pulp City!

Greetings citizens!

I'm gearing up for my second Pulp City game this weekend with the cold war forces.  I'm looking forward to how a game plays when I've actually read up on what my models can do.

One of the bits of collateral missing from our last game was civilians.  In Pulp City civilians serve a number of purposes and function as objectives in many scenarios.  Pulp Monsters offers silhouette standees for citizens but I always thought proper models would blend better with the scenery and look cooler.

Years ago I bought a ton of Heroclix models with the intention of repainting them and using them for other games.  For more than 5 years that box has been a great source of figures for  a lot of games I've played and once more I'm diving back in for some civies.  Much like Les Impes I've actually already done this project once before on different bases but I enjoy doing them so doing a second batch is no big deal

My first batch of 8 are mostly re-paints although a couple were more touch ups on existing paint jobs.  What's kind of neat about these figures is that Heroclix doesn't actually have a use for "civilians" per se so 5 of these 8 figures are actually meant to be various superheroes in their secret identities.  Feel free to make guesses in the comments below.  I'll honour Silver Age tradition by acknowledging "no-prizes" for successful guesses.

In addition to the 8 above I have 2 more done that I photographed separately because I'm involved in some hobby challenges where I track "painted" figures and it would be a huge stretch  to claim I painted these.  Both were crisp enough out of the packages that I just re-based them and re-did the eyes.

So that means I have 10 civilians done so far for Pulp City.  In a perfect world I'll get 10 more done next week.

-Jay

If not the long arm, then the scatter gun of the law...

As part of my slow build on some dark and gritty for This Is Not A Test I got my first Peace Keeper Officer done.

Officers are the rank and file troopers on the Peace Keeper force list.  There will be a few more coming to the wasteland with a variety of gear but my first officer is wearing body armour and armed with his trusty pump action shotgun.

One of the things I like about the Peace Keeper models is that they do a really good job of blending the look of pre-war clothing (in this case a State Trooper uniform) along with some post-apocalyptic elements that make them feel like they truly are part of the setting they live in.

I'm really stoked about these figures and when Worlds End Publishing releases some more of the Peace Keepers they offered during the Kickstarter I'll be putting another order in.

-Jay

Gotta get back on that horse...

One of the things I've found about painting miniatures is that as much as I love doing it once I take a break for a few days sometimes those days drag on and I take more of a break than I was planning on.

This week I was travelling for work most of the week so I had 3-4 days I couldn't paint...but then I added on 2 more days that I really just didn't paint.  When this happens sometimes I have to look past what I "want" to do and just pick  something that I can get done so I can get the momentum tolling again.

Quite a while back I asked the question "Do I play this game?" with regards to Infinity.  At this point I'm pretty sure the answer is "no, I do not" but I still buy their figures to use for other games.  Primarily I've had an eye on figures that would make good modern/near-future survivors.  I purchased the figure below around the time The Division came out because I felt he fit the feel of that setting fairly well and could see myself gaming it at some point.   To circle back to where I started about just wanting to get something done he was a fairly good choice because he's well textured but doesn't have a ton of fiddly detail.

I've got everything set I need (I think, better double check) for my Ravenloft game Monday night so assuming I'm right about that I'm going to try to get some Raiders done for  a solo play of This Is Not A Test on Sunday.

-Jay

The law is coming to the post apocalypse!

One of the things most miniature gamers experience at some point in their hobby journey is the moment where they want to play a game and when deciding on a force a single model makes the decision for them.  That moment where you find the miniature that on its own makes you want to play the game and collect that particular faction.

I mentioned in my previous post that part of my plan for This Is Not A Test for 2017 for for not every figure I paint to be a funny mutant animal and at some point to be able to field a 'serious' force.  I've really been enjoying the funny/scary animal mutants because as I've referenced time and time again I really enjoy the imagery of Gamma World, but now I want to get into the down and dirty of This Is Not A Test and immerse myself in the game's background rather than shoehorning my tastes into it.

Luckily for me when trying to decide on a faction as I eluded to in my intro there was a single model that made the choice easy for me; the Road Marshal.

How amazing is that miniature?  Look past my mediocre paint job and really look at the sculpt itself.  It's (in my opinion) the perfect symbol for the game it comes from; it has ample detail to excite and draw you in, but isn't so overly busy it gets tied up in style over substance.  From the gas mask, to the chaps, to the spurs this figure has piles of little details to make it feel like a real person without being cartoonishly over adorned with extra pieces.

The funny thing is I've loved this figure since I first saw This Is Not A Test over a year ago but I specifically stayed away from it and the Peacekeepers out of the mistaken impression that I would be playing a lot of games against these exact miniatures.  Its a weird path that leads you back to where you either started or meant to start sometimes.  When I originally back the Kickstarter for This Is Not A Test I did so at the 'rulebook only' level, then as things went on and I immersed myself in the community I simply decided I wanted to increase my pledge to provide more support to the project.  I already had the mutants so my choice was pretty much made for me.

I do have and do plan on painting the rest of the original Peacekeeper models to fill out my collection but I have a few other models from some other ranges I think should blend in as well.

I'm definitely looking forward to bringing the law to those who have it not.

-Jay

Not all animals I paint for the post-apocalypse are my warband members

I took a break from Ravenloft/Zombicide today to go back to work on some figures for This Is Not A Test.

This year I'm planning on doing 3 separate projects for This Is Not A Test.  I'm going to do a new Gamma Worldish warband of cat-people to scrap with some Alfs at some point this year.  I'm also planning on doing an actual gritty looking 'normal' warband.  And I'd like to get a bunch of the wasteland creatures done for use in scenarios as I go.

I backed the Kickstarter for This Is Not A Test (the first Kickstarter I actually backed!) and as part of their successful funding each contributor above a certain basic level got 3 free giant rats.  I already have quite a lot of giant rats from D&D and some from Malifaux but it was nice to get some that are mutated and fit more with a sci-fi feel.

At this point I don't have any specific plans to use these figures for any games outside of This Is Not A Test but could easily see them on the table for Necromunda or any of the assortment of post-apoc RPGs I keep meaning to get around to.

The goal was to get a fourth figure done today but I came up a bit short.  Hopefully tomorrow my Road Marshal will also make it to the finish line and I'll have the start of my first non-mutant warband done.

-Jay