More new toys!!!

Huzzah!!! I often cry at the sight of the postman (or women in our case) trundling up our front garden path with a box in hand. Only to be disappointed that its a new pair of shoes / skirt / nail varnish for the missus. However not today so double Huzzah I say. Yep I ordered the two D&D board games, Castle Ravenloft and Wrath of Ashardalon (try saying that when your drunk) off of the fabulous OG Games on Tuesday evening and was far too cheap to pay for first class delivery (what!!! I'm fecking unemployed now). However they turned up today perfectly packaged and looking all swanky so somebody will be getting big win points on customer service. Here are some pictures for you all to get excited about:

The two boxes, looking all sexy in a geeky way

Review: Dystopian Wars Federated States of America fleet

 
Look away! Look away! Look away Dixie land. Yep its the Federated States of America not United States history fans, because that's where the history line in Dystopian Wars breaks with our actual history line for our transatlantic American friends. So you can indeed whistle Dixie if you chose to and it wouldn't just be a sentimental token!!!

Product Description

Well there is again a nice unique element to the aesthetics of this fleet. Its clear to anyone with eyes that they take their queues in many respects from the Mississippi paddle boats and the ironclads of the American Civil war. That's not a bad thing because again like the Empire of the Blazing Sun, this decision to go with a strong and distinct design aesthetic by and large pays off. As before you get a boat load (haha boat load, yeah OK I'll get my coat) of bits and pieces in the box. There are the obligatory 3 Cruisers, 9 Frigates and 1 Battleship all in resin along with the 2 metal bombers, 2 acrylic stands and of course those card sheets containing stat cards for the boats, tokens, counters and templates, resplendent with the Dystopian Wars artwork. Its all lovely stuff really

Review: Dystopian Wars Prussian Empire

 
Or as everyone I know calls them... the blimp faction!!! Lets get this out of the way first, those blimps are undeniably cool. Yeah sure the Yankee faction has their own sausage blimps but the Prussians fat blimps are pure design gold. They are awesome, and for me the real reason to own the Prussian fleet, that and the iron cross motif looks cool!

Product description

Now for the downside, of all the fleets I think the Prussians are the most boring looking. They look the most like modern navel battleships and because of that I find them a little uninspired. That's my personal opinion and I know there are others who really like the militaristic look of the Prussians, and I know Spartan have to cater for all tastes... but I prefer my steam punk stuff well more punky and steamy... erm... not in a saucy way you understand!!! Still there are a few nods to steam punk I suppose with the smoke stacks, although I feel they're more reminiscent of the golden age of ocean liners. As with all the starter fleets we have 1 Battleship, 3 cruisers and 9 frigates all in resin and then the two bombers in metal. You also have the same stat cards and templates etc. again its all good and you'll be good to go with everything right out the box.

Dragon Forge Resin Bases: Tech-Deck

Dragon Forge Designs

You see in the interests of thorough investigative journalism I felt it was wholly unprofessional of me to judge the wares of Dragon Forge on their admittedly brilliant Omega Prime bases alone. I felt I owed it to you, my loyal readers to order more of their product to ensure the standard remained consistently high!!! That's my excuse for buying these Tech-Deck bases, and also my excuse for buying my new Nomad army, because after having purchased the bases I needed to buy stuff to go on top of them!!! So in short I'm blaming you lot for me being skint and Jeff for making lovely bases, and that's what I'll tell the Bailiffs when they come a knocking on my door!!! 

Review: Dystopian Wars Empire of the Blazing Sun fleet

 
I have to say that if my funds at the time of purchasing the mega bundle had been strictly limited I'd have really struggled to have picked between the Kingdom of Britannia fleet and these guys. Lets face it these ships look really cool.

Product Description

The Empire of the Blazing Sun fleet does have a very distinctive look to it, with its sharp, sleek looking bows and the cylindrical structures on top of the hull. They look like steam engines in a way and although they do look boat like they don't look like boats shapes we'd be used to and this unique aesthetic does strangely look eastern and oriental. Like the Kingdom of Britannia fleet before it, this boxed set contains a hell of a lot of bang for your buck!!! 1 Battleship, 3 Cruisers, 9 Frigates all in that same nice resin. There are also the two metal bombers acrylic flight stands and 10 resin flight tokens and all the card tokens, counters, stat cards and templates etc. In short its a great little starter set for your floating ninjas and samurai.

Review: Dystopian Wars Kingdom of Britannia fleet

Those of you who know me well, will know that although I'm fiercely patriotic I am in no way jingoistic!!! I love my country for the great things we've done and yet despise ever so slightly the country we're becoming; but hey, we have great little companies still like Spartan Games who can still churn out great little game systems and great little miniatures to go with it... rule Britannia indeed!!! So where better to start my reviews of the Dystopian Wars fleets than the Kingdom of Britannia?

Product Description

Some people have said to me that the Britannia fleet lacks say the character of the Federated States of America or Empire of the Blazing Sun fleets, or that it doesn't have the great individual pieces of say the Prussians... I say poppycock Sir!!! I love them, you see I think the Britannia fleet actually evokes the mental images I conjured up when listening to Jules Verne stories being read to me or indeed later when I read them to myself. The Britannia fleet does this much better than the other fleets. There's also something very quintessentially British and Victorian about them, the big smoke stacks and bulky, brash and clunky design with iron girders that says made in Britain. I think they have bags of character and they don't have to rely on one individual design element to look British, unique and cohesive, they borrow heavily from the architecture of the time and that adds to their allure and familiarity. Out of the box you get 1 Battleship, 3 Cruisers, 9 Frigates, 10 flight tokens all in resin and 2 bombers in metal and a few turrets and nick knacks to go onto the ships also in metal. There are also the usual high quality card components you've come to expect off of Spartan Games, including ship profile / rules cards, counters, tokens and templates. That's right everything you need in one box to get you started. I love that about Spartan Products.

Review: Al-Vianna Studio McVey

 
This is the final miniature I'll be reviewing for now from Studio McVey as its the last one I've got!!! Although Lisbeth and Kara's last stand are tempting... any who this is another one of those faeries; see told you I liked faeries. She has a cool 'lady of the lake' vibe about her, strutting her sultry self forward and holding that sword out as an offering, or a taunt maybe... or could it yet be part of some magic incantation? Who knows, its just a really nice simple pose that could be any of the above and its up to you as the painter to decide. She's also got crabs (no she's not a skank!!!) in her hair (no not 'that' hair get your minds out of the gutter) and that continues and confirms the watery, nautical theme of the piece... so I'll be painting her all brown and red then!!!

Product Description

For those of you with an aversion to super glue you'll be pleased to know that Al-Vianna comes in one piece. Yep you'll get to save on super glue too, and like Isabella before her she also doesn't come with a resin base, like before this is both a shame and a bonus, as it'll allow the creative juices to flow in terms of how I or indeed you should set the scene for her. Yannick Hennebo has again do a pretty bang on job of capturing Stephen Tappin's original concept art.

Review: Y'Sidyra Studio McVey

 
Again another miniature I was always going to buy. The pose is just so dynamic and full of movement. It looks impressive in the pictures you see of it and it only impresses more in the flesh. Its one of the few pieces in the Studio McVey range that looks like something truly energetic is happening and that the evil Y'Sidyra is about to pounce on something... and brutally kill it. Its just a really nice piece. Oh yeah and did I forget to mention that he's the second of my dark and nasty faeries!!! Yay more faeries.

Product description

So he's another naughty faery and from the looks of him, he's a pretty deadly naughty faery, with twin 'punching blades' attached to his hands. He's comprised of 5 pieces himself, those blades make up two of them, with two further strap type thingies that attach around his hips and flail off behind him helping greatly with the sense of animation and motion in the piece. The largest component though is his main body. There is also a highly detailed scenic resin base as well, which in itself is a work of art and easily the best scenic base out of all the Studio McVey pieces I own, its highly detailed and creates a 'scene' for Y'Sidyra to occupy.

Review: Y'Sala and Darkness Studio McVey

 
I had to own this model, when I first saw pictures of it I just thought it was a beautiful piece conceptually and it had been realised in a fantastically detailed way. Its possibly my favourite of the miniatures that Studio McVey have done so far, vying for that top spot with the delectable Ruby. So yep the naughty faery and her summoned beastie had to go into the shopping cart.

Product Description

I think out of all the Studio McVey pieces that I own this has to be the most complex in terms of composition. Y'Sala herself comes in only 3 pieces, main body, staff and a finely detailed thingymebob (yes that's the technical term) that goes on her back. Simple. Except that she also has to fit into her base and her staff has a cloud like structure coming off of it which joins up to the 'Darkness' and is clearly summoning him as he coalesces into reality. You still with me? Yep that's right the Darkness is coming out of her staff, he himself is attached to the base his two hands which are sculpted onto the base, and his head comes separately. I'm a bit bamboozled as to what to do to be honest, because I think if I put the critter together on the base with Y'Sala it'll be an utter bitch to paint. Hence the reason why I have no shots of her completed in one piece. Yannick Hennebo has not only conceived and sculpted an amazing miniature, its also possibly the worlds first puzzle miniature, its a very bold and brave piece to attempt and I think he pulled it off as the piece does look fabulous and I can forgive its complex composition when it looks this damn good.

Review: Isabella Studio McVey

 
This was the first miniature that went on the order from Studio McVey, there was just something about the pose that made me think I had to own her. There's something Gaelic and French about her, she's chic, nonchalant yet remains totally deadly looking... in a feminine and none brutish way. Its probably the cigarette and the bob hair cut now I think of it, but still she's cool.

Product Description

The concept for this piece was done by Ali McVey and I think its fair to say the image is just as sultry and sassy as the final piece, which was sculpted by the brilliantly talented Jacques-Alexandre Gillois. This is the first of two miniatures from Studio McVey that I have who don't come with resin bases, the other being Al-Vianna. Not that this is a problem at all because it just means I get the chance to pick the setting for the sultry vixen!!! So without that resin base the miniature comes in two parts, the main body and her right arm that is nonchalantly holding a very long cigarette.

Review: Ruby Studio McVey

 
This was part of my 'splurge' order I made from Studio McVey after having decided that I needed 'little presents' or rewards to keep me going while painting the figures I have for the gaming systems I play. I have to be honest I wasn't going to put Ruby on the order until Mrs Frontline Gamer said, 'what you're not going to order the the kick ass cowgirl on the dinosaur'... and when you put it like that why the hell wasn't I going to order her?

Product Description

She could have thrown sassy and sultry into the old descriptive mix as well!!! Honestly I have no frigging idea why I wasn't going to add her to my original order from Studio McVey, I really don't. She's a Cowgirl, with a stetson hat, long trench coat armed to the teeth with a kick ass look... while riding a fricking dinosaur, a dinosaur people and everybody knows things get a hundred times better when you put a dinosaur into the mix!!! Sam Wood's original concept for the piece was pretty 'sick' as the youth of today say and Jacques-Alexander Gillois has done a damn fine job realising it in 3D. Utterly fabulous darlings and this years must have mini... she might just be my favourite of the lot!!!

Review: Ar-Fiach Studio McVey

Well this is the first model I got from Studio McVey. I'd seen a fair few miniatures of theirs via other people who shoved them under my nose and I'd been impressed, but never taken the plunge as I had so many identikit plastic toy soldiers to get through first. However on a very grim night while realising that I was was no longer enjoying the hobby, painting miniatures I didn't like for a game system I was starting to loathe... I had an epiphany... I should really be only painting things I wanted too. It was that short sharp shock to my system that lead me to this little lady, or faery.

Product Description

This is a really nice little sculpt, its part of the studio's faery series and I think it was the miniature that actually made me want to pick my paint brushes up after a few months of inactivity. I just loved the look of the Victorian chimney sweep urchin faeriness of it all (forgetting that TV aerial for a second). Stephen Tappin's original concept was ace and a lovely idea and Yannick Hennebo has done an amazing job of bringing that concept to life with a brilliant sculpt. The miniature comes in 6 parts, the main body and the chimney are sizeable pieces but the others could be fairly described as 'fine'.

Where have I been?

Right well I haven't updated the site for a little while now. Those of you who know me will know that this is because lately I've had a few things to deal with... not least of which is redundancy. Yep the Tories have claimed another victim, but enough of the party political broadcast (utter wankers).

So I've been trying to sort out a few things like reducing a few bills and applying to jobs. If anyone has any work in the West Midlands please let me know!!! Because the jobs market is really, really grim out there right now.

Hobby wise I've just started playing Kings of War and its not too bad. I think I got a few things wrong while giving it a go, God knows how I managed that given the rules are so minimal. Any way its enjoyable, not too sure its a perfect Warhammer substitute but it did sort out my cravings for large scale Fantasy games. So I've ordered myself an Orc army off of Mantic to try and support them in their endeavours, plus the Orcs I've received are really nice!!!

Also taken part in a few intro games of Infinity and converted few peeps, also done a few Firestorm Armada games and converted a fair few peeps to that as well.  Looks like the Walsall Warlords might also be starting to play a fair few more Spartan Games so if you're in the area and fancy having a game of Firestorm, Uncharted or Dystopian then pop down and give them a game.

Any who articles will be going live from today onwards, starting with some reviews of those Studio McVey Mini's. I'll also be doing a write up for Kingdom of Death and Bane Legions. Peace out!

From the creative minds of Studio McVey

The name Mike McVey will be familiar to those of us of a certain age and indeed a certain gaming persuasion. He has been responsible for so many Iconic paint jobs for Games Workshop that were I to try and list them all I'd probably be here all day. He's also spent time working at some of the biggest names in the industry including Wizards of the Coast and Privateer Press, so he's been around the block and probably has multiple 'the T-shirts'. However for me he did paint the miniature that made me want to get better at painting, the Bretonnian Green Knight. I'd always loved painting but never really thought too much about what I was doing, the Green Knight made me want to learn as much as I could about figure painting... and I've still not learned anywhere near enough to be an even half competent painter!!!

However Mike and his also insanely talented wife Ali decided to turn their hands to producing their own fantastic range of one off miniatures for painters and collectors alike. Thank the miniature Gods that they did because honestly they're producing some of the best models around right now. I make no bones about it, I love pretty much every single miniature they've produced and even those that don't necessarily appeal to my particular aesthetic tastes I can see and appreciate for the gloriously detailed individual sculpts that they all are. I have hammered my bank card recently ordering far too much resin from Studio McVey... but its probably worth not eating for a week or two... although I think the other half disagrees with me on that one, but not as vehemently as some of you might think after I showed her Ar-Fiach!!! What can I say she's a girl, and girls like faeries... now if they did a faery on a Unicorn!!!

Flames of War

I  think it would be fair to say that I am not the worlds biggest historical wargamer, in fact you might say it doesn't interest me in the foggiest... and you'd not be too far from the truth. While for my parents generation I think historical wargaming was ever so slightly more important or prevalent in the hobby, it has taken somewhat of a back seat, certainly for me and my peers to sci-fi and fantasy inspired games, why? Well Elves and Jedi's are just way cooler than Red Coats and Yankees!!! Well they are to me. There's also something that I always found a little unnerving about the whole 'battle re-enactment' thing as well. Maybe others don't have an issue with it but I have to admit to being ever so slightly uneasy about say reliving the Alamo or the landings on Omaha beach. Actual people died in those fights and while I have no problem obliterating fantasy Orcs or space ninjas... dropping a mortar shell on an actual unit that had real people in it... well it just cuts a little too close for me.

I need to make it clear that I have not yet played any 'proper' games of Flames of War, I had an abortive intro game at a hobby store I happened to stumble across while trying to find a train station and... well the guy running the game had some interesting 'beliefs' and it kind of put me off the whole thing for a while. However people kept saying give it a go, have a try, its good fun etc. etc. etc... so I got the starter set, Open Fire, which gives me 2 German tanks and 3 American tanks, a mini rulebook some dice; you get the picture. Now I've actually played 2 games using this starter set and while I'm certain there's way more to the game, I do like the mechanics of it all. It seems fast and fluid and well structured. So I went out and got a load of the source books and I have to say they are exceptionally well produced and are of an extremely high quality and treat the source material with an incredible amount of reverence and dignity... unlike the strange guy who gave me the intro game, who I still to this day regret not punching!

War(path) huh what is it good for...

...well I'm not really sure yet, would be the truthful answer. However unless you've been in a wargaming cave for a few weeks locked away from the world, you can't have failed to hear the news that Mantic games, the purveyors of reasonably priced miniatures are planning on expanding into futuristic sci-fi wargaming, I guess it was inevitable really. It is however a brave move for such a relatively young company and the news was officially announced on Beasts of War Turn 8 show, give the video a watch as Ronnie and Alessio give some good info on what to expect. Also if you're a newly subscribed member to the Beasts of War 'Backstage' service you can get access to the Alpha rules to Mantics Warpath. I've signed up for a few reasons:

1. I find some of their video's entertaining
2. They do a good job promoting the hobby in a fair and balanced way 
3. After the great job they did on promoting Infinity I feel duty bound to support them back... I think its worth it.

But for now lets get back to Warpath and Mantic, what are they playing at? Well you see until 8th Edition I wasn't really sure there was a need for another large scale fantasy battle game on the market either, or even room for one. I could, however see a market for cheaper alternatives to Games Workshops own Citadel range of miniatures, especially as they started to continually ramp up the size of the game. However what the Games Workshop did with 8th Edition has left some people cold, me included and before people start waiving their arms in the air and reaching for their nearest flaming torch and pitch fork, I also know that the reality is the game is also liked by a fair few, and more power to you if you're one of them. However for me if I want a large scale fantasy game then their isn't anything for me, well apart from Mantic Games Kings of War. So was it planned or perfect timing on Mantics part? Only Ronnie really knows.

Secret Weapon Miniatures Resin Bases: Runic Mountain

Secret Weapon Miniatures

Luckily, given I'm a moron, I'm working on another project right now for display purposes, so I also ordered myself some Runic Mountain bases off of Secret Weapon Miniatures at the same time as I ordered the Desert Sands bases. This gives them another chance to shine and hopefully proves I'm not a complete dunce after the desert sand base fiasco... have I really become so lazy that I can't be bothered to put my own sand on bases? Have I sunk so low? well apparently yes, but lets not dwell on my apparent indolent ways, hey I'm not so lethargic I can't use big words... hell occasionally I even use them in the right context! Given I only have a few of these for quite specific projects and that I've already done a full on review for some Secret Weapon bases, this review you'll be thankful to hear will be mercifully short.

Secret Weapon Miniatures Resin Bases: Desert Sands / Wasteland

I've blabbed on about my checkered past with resin bases before... so I won't bore you again. I brought some of the Desert Sands and Desert Wasteland bases from Secret Weapon Miniatures after I'd had an exceedingly good experience with Dragon Forge Designs. I decided to branch out and see what other companies were up too. I also decided as my Aleph were going to be on spanking gorgeous resin bases I might as well put my Haqq Islam force on some as well, hence the deserts sands bases. However...

How do you improve on chess? Ask an Italian! A review of Shuuro

Shuuro approved by cats

Right lets get this out of the way, Chess is a very old game, in fact I'm pretty certain that if you're a creationist Chess as evidence for the opposition must be almost as hated as say, oooh the theory of evolution, because both show how utterly bonkers the idea that the earth is only 6000 years old is. Because I'm sure there was a version of chess being played more than 6000 years ago and archeologists have found evidence of similar games being played thousands upon thousands of years ago. However the first actual recorded use of a Chess type game is in northwest India during the Gupta empire some 1600 years ago. Cathuranga as it was known was then believed to have moved over to Sassanid Persia some 100 years later, where it became known as Chatrang. After the Islamic conquest of Persia what would ultimately become chess had yet another name change to Shatranj!!! You still keeping up with all this at the back...

...Good, so I'll continue. It is felt that chess might have been brought into Europe by 3 rough sorts of route by the 9th century, into southern Iberia by the Moors, Persian traders (probably selling rugs) in Italy and Greece and via Russia. Around 1200AD it is believed that us Europeans decided we'd start tinkering with the game, you see we're pretty awesome in Europe and can pretty much improve on anything the rest of the world invents, like spaghetti!!! Funnily enough it was the Italians who are also  credited with changing the rules to what is now considered modern day chess, where the pawns have the option of moving two places at the start, the Queens became super powerful and the bishops got there powers. Not surprising given the power of the church in Italy and powerful female matriarchs in Italian history like Catherine De Medici. The name chess is also believed to be derived from the persian word for king, shah linguistics fans. So with the Italians being credited (along with the Spanish) for creating modern day chess perhaps it is fitting then that another Italian has decided that Chess could do with yet another makeover, Alessio Cavatore. Obviously another theory proposes that Chess has actually evolved from the Chinese game Xiangqi, but that theory really doesn't fit well with my article so I'm going to ignore it! What? Look its a review of Shuuro not an academic piece on the origin of Chess!!!

Antenociti's (thats a mouthful) workshop resin bases: Chamfer Style Wooden Bases

Antenociti's Workshop

Well I've kinda run out of Infinity factions right now to actually buy different types of bases for. Luckily I'm utterly bonkers and play far too many games one of which is Malifaux, another being Anima Tactics. I have recently acquired the Collete Du Bois gang, and lovely they are too, but the studio mini's are actually based on some nice wooden floor board bases, also I have some pirates... arrrgh... for my Azure Alliance force in Anima Tactics so I needed some bases that could double as a poop deck, hehe (I said deck). So in steps the shop with the name that nobody I know is brave enough to try to pronounce... Antenociti's Workshop. God I hope I've spelled that right...

Micro Art Studios resin bases: Urban Bases (Infinity Bases)

Micro Art Studios

So then, I've got bases for my Aleph from Dragon Forge Design and some desert bases from Secret Weapon Miniatures for my Haqq Islam force (review coming up)... this left my Yu Jing sitting on my ordinary crappy old bases and as every good citizen of the glorious empire of Yu Jing knows, that just will not do!!! So I set about rectifying this grave error, and hoped the Emperor would spare my life for such a betrayal. Firstly I didn't actually own any of these bases, however after helping a friend pin his entire Combined Army to a set of them I decided that perhaps I should remount my Yu Jing onto them, as they seemed a suitable setting for all my high tech space ninjas, you can't beat a good space ninja. So with the fact that I'd seen a set of them and still decided to buy them means they must clearly be worth buying, you should bear that in mind when reading the rest of the review.

Dragon Forge Resin bases: Omega Prime

Dragon Forge Designs

Resin bases and me didn't get off to a very good start as I mentioned earlier today, years and years ago before gravity had been discovered I brought some resin bases to mount some nicely converted knights onto. Things didn't start well, doing my usual washing trick with the resin and even though the water could be fairly described as tepid they started to dissolve a little bit like an Alka-Seltzer, things went from bad to worse when the first one I managed to save had more air bubbles in it than an Jacuzzi!!! In the end I binned them, muttered something about never again and cursed the gaming gods!!! However it turns out though things have moved on a fair chunk.

As I'm sure I may have mentioned at least once or twice now, I have turned into a pretty damn lazy hobbyist. Whereas before I'd gladly whip out the green stuff, slate, sand and plasticard now I just want an already done base and for me to just pin my minis to their already wonderfully sculpted bases. In my Games Workshop days I have to be honest and say the thought of plumping for resin bases for an entire Warhammer Fantasy Battle army brought me out in hives and gave me panic attacks... but since I'm now playing skirmish games its not so bad.

Its one of the many reasons I'm starting to love the smaller game systems because you can afford to go to town on things like resin bases to make your entire force look super awesome. So imagine my delight when my lazy eyes saw the Omega Prime bases from Dragon Forge Designs. It was meant to be, as I was trying to work out whether I was too lazy or not to dig out a compass cutter and some plasticard for mounting my Aleph force, and then a solution presented itself to me, so perfect it'd have been rude not to!!!

The rise and rise of the resin base!!!

Its fair to say that me and the resin bases did not get off to the best of starts all those many, many years ago. In fact one might even say we got off to a rocky start. I won't go into details but the first ones I had were rank, stupidly expensive and about as detailed as a flat thing... a blind, one armed gibbon could've done a better job. My next foray into the world of resin bases would be quite some time, I ended up getting some resin bases from Forgeworld for some Dreadnoughts. Again I have to say I wasn't overly impressed with the detail or the product but they did there job and didn't make me see red quite like my first lot of bases.

So what has changed? Well lots of things really, firstly the cost of buying resin bases has come down quite a bit and they're now probably more affordable than they've ever been. Coupled with this I'm actually playing smaller games now so I need fewer of them. Trust me the prospect of buying say a couple hundred resin bases for a Warhammer Fantasy army did not make my bank account very happy, but 20 or 30 for Infinity doesn't seem too bad. Finally there are way more companies now competing in the marketplace and the standard of the product on offer has gone through the roof...

Review: Dwarf Kings Hold (Dead Rising)

A few days back I made a post about my love of board games.Well I decided to go out and do something about it, I've pre-ordered the Gears of War from OG Games and am really looking forward to getting my hands on it when it is finally released around Septemberish. However along with the other games I was keeping an eye on Kingdom Death and Super Dungeon Explore they're not out now and that's left me twiddling my thumbs somewhat, but there is currently a dungeon crawler of sorts out for you  to purchase right now and that's Mantic Games Dwarf Kings Hold. So I placed an order with Mantic on a Friday evening and on the Tuesday, after the bank holiday Monday, I had a nice new shiny box. I have to be honest and say this game had a hell of a lot to live up to for me because I used to pay things like this as a kid with my dad and I'm sure the rose tinted nostalgia glasses have elevated what were quite poor games into paragons of gaming excellence bar none. It was games very much like this that I first cut my teeth and that got me into this hobby in the first place. A lot to live up to then...

Product Description

It came in a box, with some artwork on it!!! The box isn't the shiny, shiny top of the line cardboard box you get with say a Fantasy Flight Game or Wizards of the Coast product, and to be fair the game isn't aimed at the same 'production values'. Nope the box does its job just fine and the art work does its job too, bringing back memories of 80's cartoon Dungeons and Dragons with the Eye of the Beholder and its single animation, ah good times, first nostalgia points. Inside the box you get a few plastic spru's containing 22 Skeletons, at least I think that's how many I counted and 7 Dwarfs, oh yeah and a dog. There is a load of card tiles and all the dice you'll need to play, in a lovely shade of green that brought memories of the original first edition Warhammer Fantasy dice, ah happy memories came flooding back, nostalgia points for that too! There's also a little black book (no not that type you dirty, dirty people) that contains the rules, nothing flashy just a nice quality functional book again designed at keeping the cost down.

The game itself is actually quite a concise little set of rules. As you'd expect from a grid tiled board game, movement and facing play a huge part in the balance of the game as does use of orders as the various scenarios limit such things to either side, that's called resource management kiddy winks and is something you'll need in later life when the bank managers on the phone and the bailiffs are at your door! Onto the scenarios, there are 6 in all and as you'd expect they range from the easy to learn intro game right the way up to the mammoth veteran slog fest. However I'd be a big fat liar if I said I'd played them all, although the ones I have played I found fun to play and it doesn't take too long to play through a game so I think its more than possible to rip through 3 or 4 games in an evening after work. I also think the more adventurous and experimental of us (no sniggering at the back) might be able to come up with our own scenarios, no not with whips, handcuffs and pony tails, what the hell is wrong with you people!!!

Review: Firestorm Armada Aquan Fleet

Fishmen!!! Nope that's not the start to some weird joke or an insult, it's what, unsurprisingly, the Aquans are. Although I prefer to think of them as more squid men, primarily because I quite like the idea of killing them and turning them into deep fried calamari rings... om nom nom. Again though we're in starter box territory and if you've been reading the other reviews of Firestorm Armad stuff I'm not too sure this will throw up any surprises at all.

Product description

As with the others we have 1 Battleship (looks like a vertically squished USS Enterprise with added alien bits) 3 Cruisers that kinda look like backwards Vorlon ships (Babylon 5 for those with less geek factor than me) and the frigates look like teeny tiny versions of the cruisers. These guys are, I'm afraid the stereotypical flowing sleek looking aliens TM. That's not to say their ships don't look cool, because they do. However the best bit is still to come... they require no assembly whatsoever... well apart  from those acrylic bases!!! Again there are cards with stuff on them and counters for playing the game, they even have tongue firmly in cheek assembly guidelines complete with wry humour, nice touch.

Review: Firestorm Armada Dindrenzi Fleet

Well this is the first of the two fleets that my mate got (the cursed one) and to be honest when I saw the pictures of the Dindrenzi they hardly grabbed me in terms of a design aesthetic... but in the flesh they're actually really quite cool. The Battleship in particular is a damn fine piece, its HUGE... yes I might just have ship envy! Have to say that they do look nicer in the flesh than they do in pictures. These guys are also one of the human factions, not too sure if they're the good guys or the bad guys though... I kinda like that about this game, there might be a tinge of the fascist about them but you're never quite sure.

Product description

As before there are ships, resin / metal, acrylic stands blah, blah, blah nice looking card bits... you still want more? Oh come on!!! You're all too demanding. OK these ship are predominately resin but the frigates (small ships) main bodies are metal with resin side pods. As before there are construction guides and profile cards along with those tokens. Once more we have ten acrylic stands. I will say that I personally think the Dindrenzi ships require more assembly than either the Relthoza or Sorylians, but are hardly complex pieces, although its fair to say my mate had a spot of bother fitting some of them together, but I put this down mainly to a few slight issues you sometimes get with resin and our own haste to get them done so we could start playing the game.

Review: Firestorm Armada Relthoza Fleet

 
The second of the four Firestorm Armada Fleets I'm reviewing the Relthoza are one of the 'second wave' releases for the game, the other being the Directorate I believe. Although if I have that wrong I'm pretty sure fans of the game will point that blunder out!!! Like the other boxed sets, this fleet box set is aimed at the consumer as a starter set. While the Sorylians were the fleet that got me first interested in Firestorm its undoubtedly the Relthoza who tipped me over the edge and made me decide to get started. While the the Sorylians might be all be phallic shaped the Relthoza ships are weirdly angled sleek looking things, that do look totally alien as well as tall, and flat... I like them a lot.

Product Description

Just like the Sorylian set this box contains a profile and rules sheet so you'll be able to get playing with your fleet ASAP and also how to build them although its hardly rocket science I hope I'm not repeating myself, its all good. Unlike the Sorylians however the main 3 cruisers and the big huge battleship are all in resin with no metal bits, however the weight quota of this boxed set is upped by the fact that the Relthozan (is that the right word) frigates are all in metal and come in two parts. The most assembly is the battle ship with four side fins, two on each side and a 'bridge' or command deck thingy on the top, its all pretty straight forward and no dramas.The box also contains some card counter sheets like before for representing various aspects of the game. There are also 10 acrylic flying bases to mount the miniatures on as before.

Review: Firestorm Armada Sorylian Fleet

The first of the four Firestorm Armada fleets that I'll be reviewing today are the very 'phalic' looking Sorylians, 'the cursed' thinks I chose them because I'm over compensating for something. However I'd like to point out that his Dindrenzi Battleship is actually longer than mine and shoots its load forward... I rest my case. The Sorylian boxed set was the fleet I first liked the look of when I first started looking into Firestorm Armada around the time it was first released so I was glad to pick them up.

Product Description

The box contains a profile and rules sheet so you'll be able to get playing with your fleet ASAP and on the flip side of that is and instruction guide for putting your miniatures together, although quite frankly its not needed because I think its pretty fair to say that the Sorylian miniatures are quite a simple design and are not really going to task anyone in terms of construction. The most any ship comes in is 3 parts and its very obvious which way round things go. The box also contains some card counter sheets for various things like showing damage and crew levels of ships. There are also 10 acrylic flying bases to mount the miniatures on...  more on those later.

What a weekend!!!

Had a quite busy Saturday trekking all the way over Mansfield to get some pictures of some of the excellent Banelegion miniatures at the Maelstrom for a piece I'm planning on doing on them, I was just going to talk through them... but the Terror of Fortriu was starring at me and the Vagrant Knight demanded I take him home with me as well, so more toys:

Suffice to say they're both stunning pieces that I'd wholeheartedly recommend to any painter who just wanted really nice miniatures to do, but I'll be reviewing them and doing some painting guides for them at some point I'm sure, so enough of those for now. I also had to pick up some Nomads because I had to order some Tech-bases from Dragon Forge Miniatures for a review for you guys; see how professional am I, OK maybe that's a weak excuse for getting a load of gorgeous Nomad toys:

Lets try and be positive

I wanted this Blog to be something of a positive experience, talking about my trials and tribulations in a hobby that I truly love and have done since I was a little kid playing all those dungeon crawlers. However lately I've allowed negative posts to creep onto these pages... that's not me it really isn't and its dragging my hobby down!!! I'm not going to post on anything Finecast or Games Workshop from here on out, unless its positive, but as a last blast I've done my write up on the Dwarf Gyrocopter in resin, because I can be quite positive about it. However that's it no more Games Workshop for me for the time being.

This Blog and in particular 'that post' has received a lot of hits, and its negative and I don't like negative. I was seriously considering taking down all reference to it in my posts and Blogs (and I might still yet), but my friends convinced me not to. Why? Because it'd A) it would look weird if I took it down having published it and B) Its actually been part of my hobby journey which is what this whole project was all about. So it'll stay there as a record of what happened for people to read and come to their own conclusions, which I'm sure many of you already have, but it remains there only for now. I won't be editing or posting further comments on that topic anymore, although I did make one last edit at the top of the page directing people here and to the Dwarf Gyrocopter review. I'm done with it now.

I finally have a workable Gyrocopter... and its in Finecast

OK right lets be clear, I do not know anyone who enjoyed putting together the metal Dwarf Gyrocopter, its a shocker, awful, terrible and a right pain in the ar... you get the picture. Although actually a really cool concept, well I always liked it! However once you got the bloody thing together the agony didn't stop there, oh no, then you have to transport the damn thing and game with them without those fecking blades falling off mid game and chipping either your own, or heaven forbid your opponents models. In short its a gaming piece I've rarely used because my modelling skills have just not been up to the task, nice idea but badly executed. Therefore I felt the lightweight nature of resin would see the Finecast version win hands down, no problem.

It should have done shouldn't it? Guess what its not even a contest! Like all metal Gyrocopters before it my current metal Gyrocopter remains partially built, while the resin one is actually built. There's your comparison right there as far as I'm concerned. However it wasn't all plain sailing for the Finecast model, there's a slight miscast on one of the tail fins where it looks like the detail was scrapped by something while still setting, no biggy though, well not as big as I initially thought it was because after the undercoat it wasn't really visible (no undercoat pictures as I've painted it black and they don't show anything interesting). The tail fin spru and the pieces on it were however really quite badly warped and required some quite careful water bath treatment, as did the main blades. Not going to lie it was this which initially caused my ire with the model after about 4 or 5 hours trying to get them right, had they not being so warped and so fiddly to put right, my whole outlook on Finecast would probably have been quite different. There was also some mould lines those little channels that are on all Finecast sprus but compared to both previous models I've had it was minimal.

w00t I have new toys

Just a really, really super quick message to say my Firestorm Armada stuff just turned up so I squealed like a little girl! Hey I'm man enough to admit it. I think the cats are almost as excited about the whole experience as I am:

That ginger beast by the way doesn't come with the Firestorm Armada stuff, that is my furry sidekick Macavity the cat!!! He likes to think he helps when I put my stuff together, all he ever does is get his fur into super glue, and then I only notice after priming them... what are those bald cats called again? Not really ginge. Peace out!

EDIT - My geek friend, the one known as the cursed (check his dice rolls), has turned up to see his fleets his response was also to make a girly squeal... and then space ship noises with the odd 'pew, pew' noise for imaginary shooting... although I'm not really sure that's the sound a Dindrenzi railgun would make. I think it'd make an electronic crackling noise followed by a really big whoosh noise and a low thud as the shot leaves the chamber. Do you think I've been thinking about this too much?

Starting Firestorm Armada

 
I've written about the games that I'm currently doing or perhaps pursuing as a hobby, in short things I've already started and am either well into (Infinity, HoMachine) or have at the very least played, enjoyed and have a modicum of knowledge about (Malifaux, Anima Tactics). What I haven't done is talked through the process of picking a game up and how I go about deciding my factions or even what games to do. Not content with getting confused and muddled with the rules of the current crop of games I'm playing I have decided to screw things up even more by playing Firestorm Armada!!! I'm hoping against hope that I can shoe horn another set of rules into my befuddled brain.

So why did I choose to start Firestorm Armada... well apart from my general level of insanity that is. Its got a little something to do with me loving space sci-fi programs and space combat games. Quite frankly I never, ever got over the sad demise of Battlefleet Gothic, desite its flaws. Brings a tear to my eye!!! It also has to do with the fact that Spartan Games products are quite widely supported in my local gaming community and having plumped for the loveliness of Dystopian Wars steam-punk-victoriana-Jules Verne inspired miniatures and game, I trusted Spartan. In this hobby trust is a big thing, especially outside the big two, Games Workshop and Privateer Press, because they're so big you know the games will be supported at least. You see other space combat games haven't exactly fared all that well in the marketplace in the recent past for a number of reasons, and I won't bother expanding on them here.

Firestorm Armada seems like a safe bet to pump more of my money into, because Spartan are now 'established' or so it seems to me. There's also the friend factor, you see I think its fair to say that with Infinity and other games (not so much Warmachine) I have been the dynamic, thrusting and forceful power behind the take up of these products in my little gaming group, I'm the pioneer!!! Sorry I'm trying to act like I'm living in the 80's now we have a Tory Government in power and they've taken public policy back 30 years or more... ahem... but with Firestorm Armada things are slightly different. I wanted to start Firestorm Armada a while ago but my close gaming buddies weren't interested, so although I kept a watching brief on things I didn't force the issue with them as I'd already got them spending more money than they wanted to on new games (sorry guys). However people have taken to Infinity in a really big way round here now, and there are people who want to do some form of Infinity campaign, like we used to do 40k or Warhammer Fantasy campaigns... but we're missing a Space Combat element.