Ozball: Masons's Guide

I'm having difficulties utilising the Masons at the moment.  In truth I'm pretty crap gamer.  Though recently I came across the OzBall webpage.  I've heard of them before though never visited their site. I came across their site by looking for tips on the Masons.

The following guide was written up by Simon OzBall Masons' Guide. It's a very comprehensive guide for each of the Masons players.  Having read through it, it does give you a general idea of how to maximise specific players, when to play ball and when play rough.  Hopefully I can get some wins in! 

Space Marine Conversion

I thought I dabble in the art of conversion.  It's not something I've done before but having seen a few blogs I follow I thought I give it a go. 

As I have the Betrayal at Calth boxset available (and many other boxes that's in my wardrobe!) I thought I convert a 30K Space Marine in the fashion of a Ravenguard.  I never painted a SM before and always been a fan of the Ravenguard due to their looks and background. 

My initial thought process was to establish a point in Ravenguard history that was monumentum.  Since I have 30K spruces available I wanted to depict their survival in Isstvan V, Dropsite Massacre. The pose idea tells a Marine snapping back to action after taking damage to the head.  His survival was due to the safeguard of his helmet, which had taken majority of the impact from an in swing of a hammer, wielded by a traitor Marine.  Our Marine survived and the traitor Marine perished whether from the burst of fire from the Ravenguard's bolter or from cross fire.  Our Marine survived without a functional helmet and he picked up the hammer to rally on the fight. 

I started cutting and trimming parts to make fit of my Marine.  I had to use Kurtha Sedd gun arm and removed the plasma and replaced it with a bolter.  I've taken the hammer from the Solaq boxset and the head from the Sternguard marine boxset.

I will be painting each part first and then assembling afterwards to make painting easier.   The first step was to paint the head to get things going. 

Bigchild Creative - Black Sailors Orcs

A week ago I received my Black Sailors Orcs from Bigchild Creative.  This was from their successive KickStarter campaign.  As you can see from the following pictures I had spent a hefty sum on this campaign!  Though it was still worth it considering what you get, including the freebies (the last two pics).

What was so attractive with this KS were the artist/sculptors behind it.  On board this project were Christian Hardy, Raul García Latorre, Allan Carasco, Joaquín Palacios, Pedro Fernández and Patrick Masson, just to name a few.  These are some of the best sculptors in the miniature world, and guys I follow.  Also behind the boxart were Marc Masclans, Sergio Calvo Rubio, Edouard Negre and Alfonso Giraldes, just a handful of brilliant painters.  So his KS pretty much had an all star line up.  

The models were enclosed a clamshell plastic case packed in a gold bar shaped packaging.  Though the boxes were well designed it wasn't well constructed, as the glue on the seams were coming off.  The front of the case there is a flap which can be flipped upwards to see the model.  Not sure if this was necessary, though a nice touch.  Each box contained the box art picture of the respective model, so you can always follow their colour scheme.  These aren't your typical gaming models as they are scaled at 54mm, so they stand around 75mm.  

I was very pleased by all the cast of the models.  All the details that the sculptors had come through.  The only issue I had was the Goblin King which had a chip on the top corner of his crown though this can be easily fixed by greenstuff.  What I didn't expect were additional parts added to some models to give you the option of variation.  For example the Cartographer has the option of holding a quill instead of a rifle.  Looking at each parts I can say they should be easily put together and don't really need much cleaning and filling.  

I don't think I have the skills to justify painting these guys up yet, having seen the boxarts.  Though these will definitely be fun to paint going by what the painters have done.    

 

Malifaux Gaming - three player battle mode

A quick update of my second game of Malifaux.  Originally this was a 1vs1 game, a game for me to learn, but due to another player at the club without a game we decided to do something different.  We decided to make a game where all three players can get involved.  The player who I was originally playing against, James, came up with an idea of capturing a token that was placed in the centre of the gaming mat and walking away with it, off the board, to win the game.  In order to pick up the token you need to use 1AP, also the carrior can only make one 1AP each turn.

The crews were to start at each side of the mat.  Terrains were then added with two pieces selected and placed by the players, obviously making it difficult for the opposition.  We did use a scatter die to make it more randomise but didn't much difference.

This is no way a battle report, which I won't attempt to try.  Though with Malifaux being a recommended 1vs1 game it was very fun what we did.  I used the McCabe crew and was mostly shooting from distance, whilst James using his Hoffman crew was battling Franc, our third player, with his Resurrectionist.

The game was eventually won by James on the forth turn when his Watcher flew off the with the token.  It all could have been different as at one point the Watcher was engaged with two Resurrectionist in the centre.  James needed to disengage from combat and with the the Watcher being weaker he was desperate to get away.  He made the necessary card flips.  The first flip James drew was a low card though Franc couldn't match.  He didn't want to cheat as he still had another Resurrectionist engaged against the Watcher, which he was confident on getting his result.  Second time round James drew a high card this time Franc drew a low card and he still didn't cheat not because he didn't want to but couldn't, which says he did have any high cheat cards.

In the end James made some good moves using Hoffman's buff of Fast on the Watcher. The last turn saw the Watcher fly away into the far distance and bu that winning the game.

This was a very fun game for me, being not conventional and having a good laugh.

Endure the Stars - Kickstarter

I recently backed the KS campaign Endure the Stars by Grimlord Games.  The main reason I backed this campaign was because of the concept art, which I think is amazing.  The artist behind the design is Brain Coughlan, who I didn't know before but will am now a converted fan.

Though the reason why I'm posting this is because Grimlord Games have recently annouced BigChild Creative will be behind the production work, they were behind the Black Sailor campaign and numerous of KS campaigns.  With this announced I'm confident we get quality items in a timely manner.

There are still late pledges available so grab your copy!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/grimlordgames/endure-the-stars

Guild Ball on Vassal Engine

I recently played a game of Guild Ball on the Vassal Engine.  Being completely new to the wargaming experience and wanting to play more GB, outside of my gaming club and when people have time, was to playing remotely online. 

The Vassal Engine is a system which allow users to create specific rules to play certain games i.e Warmachine, Malifaux.  It's a basic dice rolling system and depending what gaming module you have installed it will have the contents of models, their stats, templates and in-game modifiers.  I assume these modules take a great deal of time from dedicated fans to make it to work.

So being grateful something like this exist to play more games.  I got myself involved and downloaded the GB module.  There are groups available for people to arrange games most of these groups are either from forums or Facebook page (which I have listed below).   I was lucky enough to have a GB Pundit (Dave) giving me a guided tour of the system but also some ingame guidance of GB, which I really need at the moment.   

The user interface is really easy to follow, though it's worth memorising the short-keys for ease of use.  The layout is quite straight forward, you select your team via the roster which includes all teams and players, and also Unions players are included in their respective secondary teams.

You play the game as you normally do with the Initiative, Maintenance, Active and End Phase.  The dice rolls are triggered by the column next to the pitch depending how many dice you have, you click on the respective dice you have available. All measurements are made easy with the tools available, players range and radius can be selected using the number keys, so no crappy tape measurers.   

This app is really worth getting if you cannot find a local game and want to play with other people globally.  Ideally it's worth having Skype as well so you can communicate with the other player and throw couple of insults when things aren't going your way.  I really enjoyed this app, though it can't beat playing with the real thing, you can use this to get some match practice.

You can find the Vassal FB group here https://www.facebook.com/groups/901202099948458/.
Follow Dave on https://minimusingofabear.wordpress.com/
He's also got a podcast which is pretty good! https://flockandawepodcast.wordpress.com/

Painting Bingo

I'm not sure created this but I thought this is a fun way to set your painting targets.  Painting Bingo, cross off the boxes you have met.  I hoping to achieve some of these.