Our Burrows and Badgers demogame... thank you to everyone

And so it came to pass, past saturday at the TSA Battle Through the Ages openday Noshi and me presented the Burrows and Badgers game to the audience.

With a modified version of the "Mouse-hunt" scenario, starring another famous rodent, we took it to ourselves to get people to know this lovely game by Oathsworn Miniatures.

Two warbands took the field against each other in an effort to either catch Pikachu, or if failing that, to rout the enemy warband.  Fought over a 24x24 tile, the scenery was largely made by Noshi, while the trees themselves where borrowed from the club stockpile.

Of course, I rummaged through my collection to get some additional "in character" items to decorate our table with, including my famous Pikachu hat.  Yes Ray or Fran, if you guys are reading this, it is still the same one from "that Salute", she's an evergreen x-D

The game was well liked by the people that gave it a go, and in the short and basic ruleversion I cobbled together for this saturday, we could give people the grabs of the concept, and how a basic game at it's barest works out. 

The game seemingly was liked by all, and I want to thank Michael Lovejoy for the support he gave us in setting this up and spreading the word of the game.  Here are some pictures of various participants enjoying the little gift for playing.

I hope to see Oathsworn at Crisis 2019, as it's a company I'd love to have present at our convention next year, and finally meet "the creators" in the flesh as such.

So moving on to the future, we will be expanding the warbands with more of the lovely figures to give more of a choice in warband models for events, and we are going to build a small Pokeball to act as a counter for when Pikachu get's caught and hauled around.  Because it is entirely possible Noshi and me will take this game "on the road" still one or two times to demo it at other events as well.  So now it's onwards to complete the range in my collection, as well as getting my aws (pun intended) on the Sarissa terrain pieces.

Finally, I have been reading some comments and received some priate messaging from people on how they found our game "the winner" of the event.  While this is greatly appreciated by both Noshi and me, it also needs to be noted that everyone present, being organisers, volunteers, game leaders, players and visitors are the real winners for the glory of the hobby.

And now to start working on a concept for a game idea I already have for next year...

The Haul Report 150

Welcome to the first haul report after the holidays, as the collections have been boosted again.

But let's start with this nice thing I found in Mallorca:

It looks fantastic in my armoire now, standing next to his 'mug brother'.

I received another bits order as well this week, allowing me to update the Altar even more as Slaanesh will keep claiming victories for it's ode to exstacy.

At the club, freebie dice where to be had, being the 2014 Salute ones.  I grabbed a set just because I like these sort of merchandise...

I also bought some second hand lots for my Emperor's Children, from Nemesis the old metal dreadnought and (yet another) regular squad with two plasmaguns.

While Tonny provided me with a cheap bunch of old plastic marines that will fill out my regular "pre heresy" units.

So a nice and varied heap of models and goodies the past weeks, now to start painting in top speed again...

Ariete 32nd 1st squad

Okay, I admit, I am building a part of a force not to take to the battlefield as a whole, but to bring more varied armour to the table as support for my power armoured troops.

Earthshakers, Hellhounds... those lovely gems that can wreak havoc in a line.

And while the force might be stand alone in the end, I doubt I`d really be playing it by itself, though one never knows.

The regiment name I picked for the force is the Ariete 32nd, in "honour" of the Italians I always played in world war 2 games.  While the common plastic Cadian will become regular Militia squads, these dirt cheap units make up the bulk of your force even though they can`t shoot the barn door they just ran into.

For the colourscheme I`m grabbing back to that ww2 force as well, painting them all in desert colour uniforms with exquisite white uniforms for the higher officers.
If I ever included "special" guardsmen, who are elite, they will have plumes like the Bersaglieri did, while all the armour will be desert coloured as well.  Not really desert uniform though, green shoulderpads details will be added all round.  Not only do these contrast with the beige's, it is also a good base colour to put squad numbering on.

The system I`ll be using for that will be 32-x, where 32-1 like this squad means the first squad of the 32nd Ariete.  The other shoulder holds of course the icon of Slaanesh, as these guys are a Militia unit part of the Renegades and Heretics section of the army.

To that end, the lasguns casings have also been painted brown, to look like the rifles from the war.

So this first squad costs a measly few dozen points for 10 troops incl a Grenade Launcher, and with it's 5+ to hit, s3 in shooting is basically going to be used as a speed bump or deep strike preventing unit, before dying horribly as I throw them against whatever comes my way... or I`ll mount them up instead in the Chimera I also have standing around, and be a fast and cheap early objective snatcher until the better troops come along...

Now, to paint up those tanks...

On the Painting Desk 63

Back from Mallorca, and time to get into the brushworks again.

And in that final stint before actually leaving on holidays, some good progress was made.

Not only did I finish the last of the Burrows and Badgers models, whom are actually going to be on the table this saturday as you read this, but I got some 40k work done as well.

A small bit of work was done on the Land Raider, but I also drybrushed all the black on the 20man melee unit for my Emperor's Children, and started working on the metal parts.

Apart from that, a full squad for my Renegades have been completed, opening the path now to more armoured might for the Children.

And I undercoated the first dozen models for Noshi's army, of whom I`ll probably be painting a part of to get it ready for the club league starting januari...

The final two objective markers

All done!

Six ojective markers to litter the battlefield when my forces of Slaanesh march to war.

These final two are rather simple affairs, one being a TMNT scanner that has been put on a base and now looks like some relay terminal.

The second one was a mash together of an inverted Playmobil candle holder, a foot from an old transformer like toy and the guns from some cheap toy tank.  This makes it look like some sort of AA turret.

Here they are in their "pre painted" phase, so you can see the components.

And with that, the last of the "essentials" have been taken care off. 

Honour of the Grave - Robin D. Laws

The latest novel I finished, this one is set in the area of the Border Princes during the days of "good old classic" Warhammer.

And usually I like these sorts of books, they are nice and light reading on public transportation, while easy to "imagine" how characters and area's look due to years of playing the game.

Plot

As the Empire's mighty armies clash against the rampaging hordes of evil, they leave in their wake the detrius of war, including the dead and dying.
Resourceful Angelika Fleischer ekes a living by looting the bloody battlefields, searching for the trinkets and gold carried by soldiers of all sides.
But an encounter with the mysterious Kopf brothers leaves Angelika desperate to discover the dark truth behind their quest to find the missing brother before the sweeping tide of battle overtakes them all...

What I liked about it

* the machinations at play as the conclusion of the book plays out

What I didn`t like about it

* to much fighting! And with that, I mean small groups against our heroes, time and again for page after page.  I think it was 12 fights IIRC on a 285 page book...

Burrows and Badgers demo board: The Hamlet of Eksteren

Yes, we did it, our demo board for the 29th of september, during the TSA open door day Battling Through the Ages, has been finished.

Noshi and me put some serious hours in this board, in order to get it all finished for what will become our first "duo" demonstration game, and the scenario is a modified "Mouse-Hunt" one, with Gromley replaced by that infamous yellow rodent.

You know, attracting to kids and such...

The last thing we needed to do was settle on a name for the hamlet located on the board, and in the end I went for Eksteren.  This name came about two-fold.

In the first place, our club, and where the game will take place, is located in the Antwerp village of Ekeren, so that link is pretty obvious.  But I wanted it to have an animal refering name as well, so it became Ekster, a bird called a Magpie in english.  So that blended together gave the highly suitable name of Eksteren for the hamlet.

We also tried out the rules (I wrote a simplified playsheet with only the needed rules for this game) and then we gave the scenario a go, with the stats of Gromley all reduced one level due to the small sized warbands.

You can watch the testgame right here:

Well, off to the open day now, and let's hope this will be a success...

Cornelus the Crow

The third of the soft plastic figures finsihed, this is the newest resident for the hamlet we`re building for Burrows and Badgers.

Though paintwise, this was a bit of a boring model, being an all black bird...

The model did have it's small scarf and the huge yellow hat to contrast a bit, but generally speaking this wasn`t the most exciting one of the figures to paint up.  Never the less, this now puts us at 3 finished for the demo, so the village will be inhabited at least.

I`ll see if I have the spare time to do one or two more before the end of september...

Noshi's Bridge

The final piece of terrain for the demoboard has been completed, as Noshi rounded out the bridge that crosses the stream in the middle of the tile.

The model, which I had lying around for about 10 years, is a 2 piece block of resin, made by a french company called Gauthey Miniatures.

I found those long ago in Lille, France at a convention, and now she finally has gotten painted up.  She has some nice texture in the stones, and while the halves where a bit damaged due to lying loose in some bag for 5 years, it got solved nicely with some greenstuff and liquid putty.

To cover up the holes some more, Noshi added flock to the holes as well, to go with the grass on the interior of the bridge.

And that concludes all the "needed" terrain for the table, one of these days I`ll show the board we will be playing on... and reveal the name of the hamlet I came up with in the end.

Barloc Bigbelly, Marmot Mercenary

The fifth model of the Burrows and Badgers range I`ve finished, and the leader of my small band for the demo game the 29th.

While I still have to settle on the allegiances of the bands (okay, I know which two and where they start, just not who will become what), they probably become Rogues.

Even though for the small, non-campaign driven game we left the special faction bonusses out.

The model, while ingame hasn't decent stats at all, it was one of those figures I was immediatly drawn to.  And of course, as such I ordered him in my first batch of figures.

Equipped with a heap of rusty metal armour pieces and wielding a fearsome flail, he has the presence of a bully like enforcer to me to be honest instead of the cute rodent he is based on.

Now to finish his opposing leader and everything is set and done for the demo game!

Noshi's Grub Hut

Noshi finished her second building from Warbases.co.uk Dark Age line, the Grub Hut, this week.

A nice little house at 28mm scaling, the model only costs 4.50 GBP, with the current pound / euro cost even a real bargain.

The house was painted to look like it was made from large stones, and she did a great job on that one.  For the roof, sissal was used (a sort of very fine straw used in decorations and christmas trees) which was then darkened by using Strong Tone from the Army Painter range.

The door itself only received a thin single layer, to make sure the marking inside it remained presevered.

And with that, the second house of the hamlet (and as we play on a single tile at the demo, the last) has been finished, making all the material for the demo game on a scenery level now nearly completed.