Monday 24 October 2022

Birthday Gubbins!

 Huzzah!

I turned 43 this year and I've been gifted some awesome bits and bobs and now just need to find the time to actually read them!

First up, there's two solo skirmish wargame/rpg hybrids from Modiphius in the form of Five Parsecs From Home and Five Leagues From the Borderland. I've actually got the first edition of Five Parsecs but haven't really used it but stumbled across some videos of battle reports on Youtube and liked what I saw and the fantasy edition looks pretty cool too!


Essentially the two games are based around the exploits of a small group of adventurers which take on jobs, quests and fight an assortment of random encounters whilst gaining experience and I'm really keen to give the rules a try as it looks like just the sort of game I'm interested in playing.

Next up, there's Table Fables II and Arcane Artefacts and Curious Curios!


I've been a fan of Table Fables for a while as its a wonderful resource for creating all sorts of random goodies and the newest volumes look like they'll be getting regular use in my solo rpg sessions too (once I have some spare time to do anything with them!)

Finally there's the Ultimate RPG Character Backstory Guide that my wife picked up for me. 


I must admit that I was initially unsure what I'd do with it but its been a really fascinating and entertaining read which has given me some good ideas for a mini campaign I'm hoping to find some time to put together.

Combined with my other bits and bobs, I seem to be compiling quite a nice library of rulebooks and other handy resources for my own games and I'm really looking forward to getting myself sorted out to start a project but I suspect its going to be a while before I get the opportunity as work has been super busy and the commute has resulted in me being knackered when I get home but hopefully once things settle down, I'll get on with putting it together.

I'm hoping that all this awesome reading material will result in inspiration and some painted miniatures and battle reports once I digest it all!

In the meantime, All the best!

Saturday 8 October 2022

Not Dead!

 Hi!

Apologies for not posting for a while as I've been ill then incredibly busy with my new position which has resulted in 12 hour days and leaving no time for hobby shenanigans over the last week or so!

I've been in a bit of a hobby slump due to being knackered and have the urge to get back to some miniature related goodness but have found myself having lots of projects and not really having the time or inclination to do anything with them which in turn leads to stress as I feel that I really should be doing something more miniature related rather than just drawing and playing my solo RPG's which have become almost entirely miniature free of late.

This got me to thinking about some of the past projects I've put aside and wondering if I can reboot any of them to get me back into my more traditional hobby mojo. 

From the many, many bits and bobs I've got lying around I've selected the following as possibilities to get me going again:

Rogue Trader/Planet 28/Inquisimunda/2nd Edition 40k mini campaign 28mm or 15mm

Over the time I've run this blog, I've tooted a great deal about how much I love the retro charms of 40k, be it Rogue Trader or 2nd Edition and I've put together numerous mini warbands which is perfect for small skirmishes but can I find the focus to paint up an entire force for such an undertaking?


Games like Inquisimunda or Planet 28 have made the prospect of getting some gaming in with my small warbands but I'm really keen to finally make the pipe dream a bit more of a reality. I doubt that this will be a project that I can realistically do in the short term as I don't really have the miniatures that will allow me to field even a small army but maybe I can do a slow build using a mixture of Ebay rescues and new figures.



If I'm going for a quick, and somewhat cheaper option, I do have my classic 15mm sci-fi option which I put aside a few years back as I moved back to 28mm. On the plus side there's tons of choice and the figures are much cheaper than the likes of 40k in a larger scale.

Maybe I should just do a more generic home brew setting or revamp my Stainless Steel Rat project which would allow me. to put together some rather fun and quirky forces for a very small cost compared to the oft wished for classic 40k approach.



Its remarkably fun to put together forces in 15mm from whatever manufacturer you can to create some original looking armies, such as my cultists pictured above or Rdunrundt troops below and sculpting in the scale is much quicker and more forgiving than for larger scales too.
 

Interestingly, despite the low cost and amount of space they take up, I've never actually put together an army for 15mm scale, with most of my forces only coming to 15-20 figures but maybe I can put some thought into it and make something a bit more ambitious...

Land Ironclads 2mm

I've been pootling around with Land Ironclads for a while now and its probably the easiest of my possible projects to complete as everything is so easy to make and paint. The only downside is that I'm currently finding the prospect of working on such tiny stuff a wee bit uninspiring so I may keep this on the backburner or try something new with it as while my Dwarven and Vongola Landfleets are looking pretty healthy, I could try something a bit different and get my Elves beyond the drawing board and actually built and painted.

Who knows what next year will bring but I do want to get this little project moving again as it is something I'd love to get finished and play some properly big battles in a small space and I have a vague idea of an Orcish assault on the Axebite Pass with mighty siege behemoths battling it out with Dwarven forces for control of the pass.

Somewhere on the Border SD scale

My Boar Company and the Somewhere on the Border campaign is something I've been working on off and on for quite a while now and while I absolutely love the little guys, finding the time to sculpt is something I'm finding quite difficult to do at the moment and I doubt that will change much in the next six months, especially if we end up moving house!

Thats not to say that I don't have ideas for the tiny fellows, quite the contrary as I have absolutely tons of ideas, concepts and locations I'd love to explore so it may be the case that I use the wild frontiers of Aeroth as my solo RPG setting of choice which will allow me to add the odds and ends that I want when I do get the chance to sculpt so expect to see more action on the border in the not too distant future!

Unspecified Fantasy Project 28mm/15mm/6mm

I'm a bit of a butterfly when it comes to fantasy and have messed around with various rulesets, settings and scales over the years and as much as I'd love to put together some sort of awesome 28mm scale army, I know that the chances of that ever happening are somewhere between almost impossible and never.

I do have a few packs of the 15mm figures lying around for a fantasy warband but am not really feeling the excitement for such an undertaking, at least for the moment but this may change if I find myself wanting to try a full army challenge.

I'm more drawn to 6mm as its super cheap and when painted, looks pretty decent but again I keep find myself drawn to larger scales, purely for visual appeal rather than good sense, possibly due to the sterling work of the Old World Army Challenges which sees folks showcasing armies being built and painted over the course of several months.

Again this is more of a pipe dream than a serious option as its seriously unlikely that I'd ever get the stuff painted, let alone get a game played but maybe thats not the point and I should look at it as a challenge to paint a characterful collection of figures and slowly pull it all together into an army over the course of a year...

Needless to say this post has been rather rambling and doesn't really resolve the whole what do I do problem but it has been pretty handy to thrash out some ideas and get myself thinking about some of the things I'd like to try and its succeeding in getting me back into the hunt for a hobby project that I can get my teeth into!

In the meantime, All the best!