The Perils of Holidays

Hi!

Well I am half way off my first week of holidays and seem to have spent most of it working on stuff for the job I am on holiday from which is a tad irksome but can't be helped. Still I have managed to sneak a few minutes to ponder my hobby.

Epic Goodness

Over the last few months, I've been really enjoying painting lots of tiny Epic scale figures and actually have some hope of playing out a game or two over the course of next week but I seem to have an infuriating obsession with a dead game which no one plays and the miniatures (those which were actually released) are really starting to show their age. Yes I am talking about Leviathan!

It seems to plague me like some sort of recurring nightmare and I can't seem to get the idea out of my system and it in turn is causing my hobby activities to suffer. For example, during the last few evenings, I have thought about getting my paints out and painting some of the many tiny figures I have awaiting a lick of paint and addition to my growing collection of Epic goodness but I find myself trawling the interwebs for pics of warbeasts, steamtanks and war golems and dare I say it, 28mm stuff.

The world of Aeroth, much like my hobby is dry and desolate at the moment

The rational part of me knows it's a ridiculous prospect as I have tried the whole build a warband thing for Leviathan before and each time it's been an utter failure. But still I can't seem to resist the siren call of a game that was never completed and whose existing rules seem to be rather haphazardly playtested too.

What can I do? Well I can try my tried and failed method of days gone by and grab a load of big resin beasties and then do nothing with them, I could approach it in 15mm scale and try to put together some sort of proxy force, I could even go for 10/6mm scale and depict properly big battles but I can't seem to make up my mind which is in turn causing me to get nothing done with my precious time as I swither about, unable to choose!

Therefore I have decided to step back and look at what I really want to achieve from the project.

1. I want to collect and paint a few forces for gaming a post apocalyptic fantasy world called Aeroth.
2. I want to play games and even a campaign set in the world.
3. I want to enjoy my hobby time.
4. I need the game to be playable on a 3'x3' surface.
5. I need the project to be doable on a modest budget.
6. I need the project to be relatively quick and easy to complete.
7. I need to actually complete the project!

Now looking at the list of stuff, I think I need to investigate just what my options are.

Dwarven Warband

Looking at what I am hoping to achieve, I think that the idea of a large warband force in 28mm scale is out already. I don't have the time, money or space for such an endeavour and painting lots of 28mm scale figures fills me with dread. I could try out a small skirmish Mordheim/Frostgrave sort of a game with small bands fighting it out over the blasted landscape but the limitations of space makes such an option more problematic and I really want to see the big beasts that populate the world get involved

Dwarven Warband 2

15mm scale offers a more reasonable mix of detail and the possibility of fielding decent sized forces but I can't help but feel that the range of figures is currently quite limited. Yes there's some lovely figures out there but I would need to do quite a bit of work to put together some of the big beasts and warengines.

Horned Folk Warband

Now I don't currently have any 10mm scale figures but I have put together some bits and bobs in 6mm scale and looking at the results, I do like what I see. It gives a real sense of scale and even constructing warbeasts and so on is quite straightforward. The problem is figure range. There are only a few manufacturers at this scale and Irregular is about the only one in the UK and the amount of work to tidy up, rebase and what not their sculpts (which ironically look great once painted!) makes me shudder. There's also Microworld which have some cracking stuff but I am put off by the pack sizes and shipping from the US at present.

This leaves me with a bit of a situation as there are several options open to me but all of them have pros and cons which need addressing. Similarly, looking at the Leviathan rules themselves, they are horrendously incomplete. There is no magic system, it lacks any explanation of how characters riding warengines or warbeasts work and many of the rules themselves seem to lack clarity. Another issue is the fact that there are only four forces to choose from.

Saying that, there is the core of a really great game in there and I am very keen to try and do something with it. I have always felt that at 28mm scale, Leviathan would have been best suited as a skirmish game as the sheer size of the forces required large tables and lots of time to complete. A more suitable scale for the game as is would be 15mm or even 6mm so what can I do to make my obsession work?

Well my incessant perusal of the interwebs may have a solution. Over on LEAD ADVENTURE FORUM I spotted these chaps:

Lion Rampant by Mr J.

15mm scale multi-based figures for Lion Rampant painted by the talented Mr J. Looking at them has made something click and my little grey cells are going into overdrive with some of the possibilities that a 15mm scale multi-base project could give for Leviathan.

Imagine combining the elements from my 6mm basing with 15mm scale figures and there might be a bit of the beginning of a plan!

Hopefully there will be an update with my experiments over the coming week or so so watch this space and all the best!