A Slight Diversion Into the World of Valon

 Hi!

I've been run of my feet of late but have managed to play a quick game of Planet 28 using my small Flintloque collection.

The game involved a squad of Ferach Voltigeur's attempting to ambush Leftenant Sharke with some 95th Rifles and a small band of Guerrillas. 

Ferach Voltigeur Squad

Sharke's 95th Rifles

Dark Elf and Goblin Guerrillas

The Setup

The Ferach deployed in the south east edge of the board while Sharke and co deployed on the north west and the guerrillas deployed at the north in the middle of the board.

 

The Guerrilla won the initiative and began sprinting for cover but didn't make it before the ambushing Ferach opened fire on them with the lead knife wielding freedom fighter to take a direct hit from musket fire taking her out of action.

The remaining Elves either fired ineffectually or rushed to outflank the onrushing Guerrillas while Sharkes Orcs jogged forward to get into range in the next turn.

The next turn saw Rifle Orc Tunge aimed and fired but missed his mark and Harpy opened up with his volley gun but the somewhat shocked Elf took only a couple of points of damage, despite the volume of fire aimed at him. Sneering at his troops ineffectiveness, Sharke aimed and fired at a distant Voltigeur and grinned savagely as his bullet found its mark and the hapless Elf was sent crashing to the ground in a fountain of blood. 

The now somewhat spooked Elves returned fire with one managing to badly wound another of the rapidly approaching Guerrillas but they continued their charge despite the hail of fire.

Said Guerrilla, a badly wounded knife wielding young lady piled into the Voltigeur who had wounded her and proceeded to knife him to death while her companion, a particularly ugly Goblin called Sanchez hurled himself at the remaining Elf but his enthusiasm didn't result in him actually managing to hit the Elf so the melee swirled on.

On the other side of the board, the Rifle fire began taking its toll and a second Elf turned tail and ran after being sorely wounded by the rapidly approaching Orcs but their companion, possibly made of sterner stuff, held his nerve and took a pot shot at Sharke as he rushed to close and managed to score a critical hit doing 15 points of damage and leaving the Leftenant badly wounded.

The final action of the game saw the lone Elf fighting the two Guerrillas fail to hit anything with his musket butt and was in return taken out of action.

 

All in all, the game took about 40 minutes and was brilliant fun and the action suitably bloody and its got me sorely tempted to rummage out my remaining figures to get a coat of paint on them as the Flintloque figures have just so much character that they almost paint themselves!

I have also finished a Colostle side adventure but need to finish typing it up so that will probably get posted up tomorrow so until then, All the best!

Flintloque and Deadloque Additions!

Hi!

I actually finished painting these guys late last year but didn't get the bases completed until the other day so I figured it was high time I grabbed some photos of them before they got put into the cabinet!

First up, here's a new Rifle Orc for my 95th Rifles led by Lieutenant Sharke: 

I may have mentioned it before but the figures are cast from tin rather than pewter and as such are a bit of a nightmare to clean the flash off and his sword bayonet is bent and I couldn't get it to straighten out without the danger of breaking it but it kind of works for an unwashed Orc!

Here's the trio thus far:

As I've mentioned previously, the old Flintloque figures are brilliant sculpts with buckets of character and as they're so chunky, they are really pleasing to paint and they're making for a really rewarding little side project for me to pootle away at from time to time.

Finally there's an old Crucible Dwarf Thunderchief that I converted to use in my Deadloque warband:

I sculpted on the mighty Russian style hat to give him a more Flintloque feel and quite like how he turned out. The original figure was a strange combination of a really nice figure with a pretty weird megaphone combined with a blunderbuss but it does the job for a fearless vampire hunting Dwarf in the frozen Witchlands!

In other news, I've also got some bits and bobs for my Planet 28/40k skirmishes which I'll post up in the next couple of days once they're finished and I've also managed to pick up a decent copy of 4th edition 40k for a princely 99p which compared to the silly prices of 1st and 2nd edition is pretty much a bargain!

I'm looking forward to having a good read once it arrives but in the meantime I've got a fair bit of painting on the go, not to mention rummaging through my assorted rulesets for inspiration (worryingly I keep finding more stuff that I want to play or try out or paint up!)

Hopefully I'll have some more stuff to post up in the next day or so but until then, All the best!

Flintloque/Planet 28 Mashup

 Hi!

I managed to play out a quick game of Planet 28 using my old Flintloque figures the other day in a much needed bit of hobby time after our flat got flooded no less than seven times in the last couple of months!

Sadly I only managed to get a couple of fleeting shots (apologies for the crappy lighting and often blurry nature of said shots!) of the action but the scenario was a really quick test game to see how the system worked with black powder level technology and it was rather fun to boot!

Sharke and Harpy been scouting the local Goblin settlements cantina in search of some grog to requisition for the lads in the 95th Rifles but stumbled upon an Elven patrol and a shootout ensued.

Harpy and Leftenant Sharke

Sharke is armed with a rifle, sword and light armour whilst Harpy has a volley gun. Game wise, the Rifle has a long range and decent amount of stopping power but takes 2 actions to reload whilst the volley gun is short ranged but deadly if it hits but takes 3 actions to reload successfully.

Ferach Voltigeurs 

The Voltigeurs are armed with muskets which have a fairly decent range and stopping power and take a single action to reload. The Orcs have a decided advantage in close combat whilst the Elves are generally better shots.

The battlefield consists of a huddle of huts with several patches of trees and the odd standing stone with the Orcs entering from the right and the Elves from the left.

Things began fairly slowly with the Orcs splitting up and approaching the Elves from different sides of the village but the Elves still got the drop on Sharke with one Voltigeur getting a lucky shot off which caused eight points of damage to the doughty Half Orc.

Furious at getting shot, Sharke forgoes returning fire and charges the startled Elf with a bellow and manages to badly maul his foe (16 points of damage!) before driving the Snivelling and now badly bleeding Elf back. But the badly beaten Elf was made of surprisingly stern stuff and reloaded his musket with a shaking hand and muttered a prayer before pulling the trigger. Opening his eyes, he sees Sharke lying flat out on the ground, seemingly dead (I rolled a perfect success for his shot which resulted in maximum damage and Sharke rolled terribly for armour!) Could this be the last we see of the exploits of Leftenant Richard Sharke?

Meanwhile on the other side of the village, the two remaining Elves had taken potshots at the Bog Orc Harpy but only managed to enrage him and I had hoped that his Volley gun would make short work of the pesky Elves but he managed to miss at near point blank range and had to resort to clubbing the pointy eared Ferach to a pulp using the now unloaded weapon like a bludgeon, swearing profusely whilst he did so.

The game concluded with the badly wounded Voltigeurs legging it before the wrath of Harpy who paused to scoop up his possibly dead officer before heading to the cantina for some much needed refreshments and pour some booze down Sharkes throat to bring him back to the land of the living.

All in all, I really enjoyed playing the Flintloque/ Planet 28 mashup as its such an easy system to tweak to work with whatever figures or indeed setting you have. Musketry is fearfully effective and I think in subsequent games I make mess around with wounds and armour levels a smidge but I am looking forward to getting some more games in the near future!

Sadly I am finding Blogger to be a total pain in the bum at the moment with a lot of features I've used for years inexplicably changed, removed or in some way made infuriating which has resulted in me blogging less than I'd like. (case in point the text box where I've been displaying my painted figure count!) Hopefully it will return to something like normal soon but I have started using Instagram too and will see how things go over there. I post under Spacecowsmith so if you fancy having a peruse, do feel free!

In the meantime, All the best!

Returning to Flintloque, Sort Of...

 Hi!

I've been sorting through my assorted gubbins and found myself rummaging out my Flintloque and Deadloque stuff and it got me to thinking about finishing off the odds and ends that I've got based but not finished.

Now I doubt I'll be able to play full section level combat using Flintloque as I have a really small gaming area and lets face it, the attention span of a gnat so the prospect of needing 15-20 figures a side isn't something I really want to contemplate. 

Instead I'm thinking of using a hybridised version of Planet 28 and Brutal Quest and playing a number of linked scenarios with a handful of characters a side and see how things go.

I've still got most of the Flintloque box set to paint up but reckon I have enough painted to make a start on trying out some test games using my Deadloque games. I need to paint up a small base board to represent the frozen winter of the Witchlands and a couple more pieces of scenery as well but I'm quite looking forward to the prospect of playing some games again.

I'll get some terrain painted up in the next couple of days and will post my progress here so watch this space!

All the best!

Lockdown 2.0 Project Log Day 27: Flintloque and Inquisitorial Investigators

 Hi!

As promised, I've actually got something finished for my daily update in the form of Sergeant Harpy for my Flintloque project:

Sergeant Harpy

I'm really pleased with how the Bog Orc turned out, with quite a few happy accidents paint wise and he's another figure done for the Flintloque project!

In other news, I've spent a bit of time rummaging my leadpile and getting it into some sort of order and have discovered I have a surprising number of Ork boyz lying around, ranging from Rogue Trader to 2nd Edition and more modern stuff too so I should have plenty of goodies to work on once I have my Eldar out of the way.

I also happened across some random odds and ends whilst sorting through stuff and have decided to paint them all up as an Inquisitorial Investigation team (plus Xenos tech slave!) They should make for an interesting leadership for my orange overalled guardsmen and make for an interesting mini project!

There's a 4A miniatures alien (missing an arm with the replacement being a Grendel Talos arm), A Kryomek trooper, two Warmachine Warcasters minus their weapons (replacements are being put together) and a Warzone Wolfbane Commando. Whilst they are a disparate group, I think they have some real character which will be fun to paint.

Lockdown 2.0 Project Log Day 18

 Hi!

Here's the next of my Elven Voltigeurs for my Flintloque project!

As usual, the varnish has given him a bit of a shine in the photo's but it's not noticeable in the flesh so to speak. I'm rather enjoying painting one of them every so often while interspersing them with other bits and bobs.

I also rediscovered my old Grendel box pile that I've had for ages and given it a fresh lick of paint:

It's such a handy piece of terrain that is useful in so may different settings and was really easy to paint with lots of drybrushing! 

I'm also working on a fair few other odds and ends and will update the blog when I get chance. It's been really satisfying to just pick up all manner of random odds and ends and just paint them as it seems to be relieving the stress the thought of actually painting a single project at once would give me and I'm surprising myself with my progress too!

Hopefully I'll get my latest batch of stuff finished today and will be able to post some more stuff tomorrow.

In the meantime, All the best!

Lockdown 2.0 Project Log Day 9

 Hi!

Here's the next of the lockdown painting progress!

He's another Elven Voltigeur from the original Flintloque boxed set. I was having a bit of a wobble about him as I painted him but perseverance saw him finished and looking good. I went for a pale tan for his trousers instead of pale blue and like the finish more than the first Elf. 

As it's a skirmish game, I will be giving them a largely similar paint style but will add the odd colour change to give a bit of variety and stop me from getting bored.

Here's a side by side with Sharke himself:

I'm continually surprised by just how nicely the Flintloque range paints up and it's looking promising for me to get all 15 painted over the course of the lockdown.

I'm now tempted to pick up some Dwarves so I can paint some Krautian troops to mix in with my collection as I remember having the old Landwehr back in the day but I'm being careful with the pennies at the moment and have plenty other gubbins that I can paint in the meantime.

In other news, my Dark Star wielding Dwarves for my Boar Company are nearing completion, just needing some details and armour finishing and will show them tomorrow once I have them done and will get them primed up and ready for painting.

With all the progress I've been making, I need to take a peek at my Rusty Robots to see if I can get some more of my tribes painted and more stuff sculpted too!

In the meantime, All the best!

Lockdown 2.0 Project Log Day 5

 Hi!

Here's the next addition to my Flintloque project, Lieutenant Richard Sharke of the 95th Rifles!

He's a really characterful miniature and channels the Sean Bean remarkably for a Half Orc!

I have fond memories of painting him back in the mid 90's and am now really looking forward to painting the rest of his Orcish companions as they ooze character and charm.

In other news, I'm working on finishing a Boar Company banner bearer that I've had sat half done for absolutely ages and once he's finished, I'll get him painted and added to my Somewhere on the Border collection before moving onto something different.

I've also got counters made for an Elven force in Leviathan which I'm hoping to play a new years eve game with to round out 2020 and set myself up for next year but more on that tomorrow!

I'm finding this new lockdown a bit of a strange experience as combined with not being able to go into work or out anywhere, the short days are making for a short painting day but I am approaching lots of old projects and getting things done for them which is rather gratifying.

I may even sneak in my vague plan for Project Azure Aeronautica, a rather fun little side project that I've had sat around on the backburner for several years and which would allow me to play around with plasticard but I'm keen to keep things going and keep the posts going and I may post some ramblings about it and several other partially formed ideas that I've had over the years if folks are interested!

In the meantime, All the best!

Lockdown 2.0 Project Log Day 3

 Hi!

As promised, here's the Elven Voltigeurs from the Flintloque boxed set that I've been working on!

Voltigeurs

The elite light infantry of the Ferach Elven empire, these Voltigeurs came with the original Flintloque boxed set and have been rather a lot of fun to paint. The detail is chunky and bold and they've got loads of character. 

I am always surprised by the size of the Flintloque range as they are mounted on lipped 30mm bases and are closer to 30-35mm scale than 28mm but that is fine with me as it's making them easy to paint.

I painted the first before realising that Voltigeurs are supposed to have yellow collars and cuffs so may go back to fix them but that's a job for another day!

To break up the monotony of painting up nine of the pointy eared types, I'm currently working on some other odds and ends of a more Orcy variety and have just finished the base for my Leviathan Orc and begun work on Richard Sharke of the 95th Rifles!

In other news, I noticed that I didn't play a single game of Leviathan this year which is entirely unacceptable so we shall see what I can do tomorrow, especially as the short daylight hours are meaning I have a limited window for painting figures and am going to try and get some counters drawn up for each of the factions from the original rules to allow me to try out a few different armies.

It's not quite miniature gaming but will do! If all goes well, I may try a similar approach for some other rulesets I've got a hankering to play but we shall see how I get on.

In the meantime, All the best!

Lockdown 2.0 Project Log Day 1

 Hi!

Well it's the first day of the new lockdown here in sunny Scotland and I thought I'd best start it off by going through my lockdown challenge and generally doing a bit of tidying of the assortment of disparate blogs that I have found myself collecting over the years.

My initial challenge has been to paint my way through the contents of the original Flintloque boxed set, namely six Orcs of Sharke's Rifles and the nine members of a unit of Ferach Elf Voltigeurs (sadly I'm currently missing one of the original ten but if all goes well, I hope to get the last remaining sculpt from Alternative Armies!

I've got a couple of Voltigeurs just about ready and will post up the first of them tomorrow but my new enforced lockdown has got me expanding my plans for 2021. With this in mind, I've refreshed my old blogs with some vague muttering about my hopes for getting an assortment of bits and bobs done for each.

I know folks get irked by my tendency of having multiple blogs but I just can't bring myself to clutter up this blog more than it is already so will be using Tales from Farpoint for my lockdown project log and to showcase completed gubbins while each mini project has it's own dedicated space.

I hope to post here daily during the lockdown and each of my other blogs once a week with a bit of a progress report!

Tomorrow should see some Flintloque gubbins and some Leviathan ponderings so watch this space!

In the meantime, All the best!

Seasons Greetings from Farpoint!

 Hi!

Well Christmas is almost upon us and following that a three week enforced holiday for me!

Before the festive shenanigans begin, I wanted to take a quick peek back at the year to see how I got on with all things hobby related.

First off, to date I've painted 139 assorted figures, scenic gubbins and whatnot in every scale from 2mm to 28mm and above so from that perspective it's been a productive year, primarily driven by my three months of lockdown in March to June. This is an improvement over 2019's total which is fab!

I'm really pleased to have made a bit of a bash at my Rusty Robots project that has been well and truly on the back burner for almost a decade now as work has kind of taken up much of my spare time so it was really great to finally see some figures and scenery make an appearance.

I also got some Mechs built to play some Battletech using my own SD sort of style which was fun but ultimately frustrated by a series of badly sculpted infantry that required chucking. Hopefully I'll get back to them in the future and flesh out a couple of lances...

Meanwhile, my fantasy Land Ironclads trundled slowly on and I pretty much finished my Dwarves for the time being and introduced the Vongola City State to the selection of forces I can field. I really need to take a week or two to finish everything up for this project but have as usual galavanted off on a tangent more than once!

Speaking of which, my War of Ashes saw me add a bunch of Kuld but I still need to make more of the voracious little eating machines to give me a proper force. Maybe I'll get around to it during this lockdown if I get my other challenges done first...

I also managed to paint up the entirety of the original Deadloque box for Flintloque, something I never thought I'd do as I'm fairly sure that in the 28 years I've been gaming I've never completed any boxed set before!

Next up, looking at my gaming progress, I managed to play 21 games using six different systems which is also an improvement on last year but it felt like I could have done more, especially if I could just knuckle down and finish off a force or two rather than gadding off on a tangent every five minutes.

This brings me to my mini plan for 2021!

First and foremost, I really, really want to get my Rusty Robots done so plan to concentrate on getting a starter gang for each of the tribes done and a bunch of random civilians, scenery and denizens of The Scrapyard made.

The plan is to get sculpting whenever I can to build as many of the little guys as I can and then paint whatever of them catch my fancy so that I don't bore myself with doing all the same stuff. This may mean a bit of an eclectic mix of odds and sods making an appearance but it can't be helped and if I can put together enough stuff, I can start playing some games which will see rumbles in The Scrapyard making their appearance here which should be fun!

I forsee needing to invest in a hot wire cutter soon to make lots of blocky terrain but it will come in handy for lots of other bits and bobs when I get around to my other plans for the year...

I've got so many things I'd like to do given the time and I figure a three week lockdown will give me a chance to make a bit of a start on them!

It's not all going to be Rusty Robots though this year! I also have set myself the challenge of painting my way through the original Flintloque box too so will need to get cracking to get the 15 figures done and if possible try out a game or two!

Back in the mid 90's after leaving the GW hobby, I stumbled upon Flintloque and have a hankering to paint some more of the chunky little chaps so will be making a bit of an attempt to start putting the collection back together. My buying approach back then was to pick up whatever blister pack appealed to me so I had a very mixed collection with Elves, Goblins, Orcs, Dwarves and all manner of odds and ends but it somehow fitted with the game and I am keen to revisit the joys of Valon and it's assorted races. 

The need to play Flintloque isn't as great as to just enjoy the experience of painting the figures and every so often plonk what I have on the table for a bit of a RPG lite sort of scenario driven wander around the edges of the wars of Mordred.

Lastly (for now at least!) there's Leviathan. It's a project I've repeatedly picked up and put down over the years but never really stopped obsessing about so I figure I'd best use 2021 to finally get it out of my system and work on a monthly challenge I've set myself. I want to paint at least one figure, be it resin or metal from the range every month and see what I end 2021 with. 

I'm not sure if I can bring myself to use the metal figures from the range as they are massive but after painting the resin Dragonbane rider and being pleasantly surprised by just how good it was, I may try using an entirely original figure approach (for the most part as the old Heartbreaker range has lots of goodies that complement the concept!). 

I've no idea how things will turn out with all these options but I look forward to having a go and who knows, the Boar Company may yet ride again with new allies, old foes and more sculpts to boot!

Folks may notice that smaller scale projects are absent from my 2021 plan at the moment. I have found myself somewhat indifferent to 15mm and 6mm for a while now but feel that if the right inspiration struck, I'd have a great time painting those scales again but we shall have to see what next year brings. 

I'll be taking Christmas day off and then starting up my Lockdown 2.0 daily project log for at least three weeks and will see how I get on.

In the meantime, All the best and hope you and yours have a fantastic Christmas and wonderful new year!

Richard

Lockdown 2.0

Hi!

I had planned to take a break until the new year but with the utterly depressing news of a new lockdown, I feel compelled to restart my Lockdown Project Log!

This time it's going to be a wee bit different as I may be working flexi furlough (depending on if and when Sturgeon gets around to telling businesses what they can do, something she seems to be in no hurry to do) so I'm not sure I'm going to be posting every day but I plan on using this enforced break to get my original Flintloque set painted up.

I started the first lockdown painting up Deadloque so it seems fitting to start this one with Flintloque and I'm hoping that three weeks doesn't turn into three months like last time so aim to get the 15 miniatures from the set (Sadly I'm missing one of the Elves!) painted over the initial three weeks and if the worst comes to the worst, I've got lots of other odds and ends that I can work on.

Ferach Survivors of the Witchlands

As I've been feeling a bit meh about my hobby of late, I figured that painting the chunky and characterful miniatures from Flintloque may be just the thing to keep me from stressing out of my gourd about things and also reinvigorate my hobby.

If things go according to plan, the end of the three week lockdown will see all the figures painted and I'll try and get a game or two of Flintloque in as well to see how well I remember the rules from way back when. The only niggle will be that my gaming board is considerably smaller than the suggested 6'x4' of traditional gaming so it will be interesting to see how Flintloque copes in a confined space.

I hope you are all ok and the thought of another, possibly interminable lockdown isn't getting you down and the consolation of miniatures will see you through.

If it's of interest, there is a RETROLOQUE Facebook group which has been running for a couple of months which has had some really great posts which is well worth joining for some retro Flintloque shenanigans. From it I have discovered that my Sharpes Rifles figures are actually some of the original masters as they're incredibly difficult to clean due to their high tin content and apparently got shipped by mistake back in the day! 

In the meantime, All the best!

Richard