More Hybrids

 

I've been having a lot of fun old-school kit-bashing to build genestealer hybrids for Space Hulk. Each of these three guys uses bodies and heads from the Stargrave Scavengers set. The two on the outside each have one arm taken from a modern genestealer hybrid set and one arm, or at least part of an arm, clipped off a classic Space Hulk genestealer! The middle guy has one arm from the scavenger set, but the gun arm comes from the Wargame Atlantic Einherjar (space dwarf) set, a sprue of which I got with a copy of Miniature Wargames. Makes a pretty good plasma gun! 

Space Hulk uses genestealer hybrids in a way that really warms my gamer heart. Each scenario has its own encounter table, so you really never know exactly what equipment your hybrids will be carrying, and since this can very greatly from scenario to scenario, you never really know how many and what type you need in your collection. My goal is to have about a dozen of these guys with varied weapons, so I'll always have something 'close enough' that I can throw onto the table (hybrids rarely last long anyway).

Big Skulls!

Just finished painted a pair of big skulls to use as a scatter terrain. These are Games Workshop pieces made to go with their Warhammer Underworlds game, though I actually got them from Stormbringer magazine - these and 4 more pieces for £9, which is kind of a steal.

I've always had difficulty painting bone. I could never quite get the effect I wanted, so I decided to really give these pieces my all. I painted the one on the right first. I used a lot of washes and layers on it, just taking my time to build it up, and I'm extremely happy with the results. It truly looks old and weathered. 

When I came to paint the one on the left, I forgot some of those lessons. While the end effect isn't bad, it doesn't please me quite as much. It looks like it was recently picked clean, while the other one looks ancient. 

I showed them to a friend and said, 'I love terrain pieces that I can use for every setting!' To which he replied, 'Those are going to look great in your American Civil War battles'. Fair point, but since I mainly play fantasy and sci-fi, I think it works.

The other 4 pieces are smaller, or about the size of the smaller skull, so hopefully I can get them painted up soon. Actually, I don't really like one of them, so it might be just 3 more. Cool kit. Definitely worth the money if you can find it for £9.

Colonial Marine Gun Truck

 

My Colonial Marines got a serious firepower upgrade over the holidays in the form of a gun truck. The model is from Games Workshop, their Genesteler Cults range. I liked the tough, workman-like look of the vehicle and thought it would be prefect for marines stuck on distant colonies who were generally facing low-level threats. 

I don't really enjoy painting vehicles, so I gave it a very quick green paint job with a few details and a good bit of weathering. Then I threw a few decals on for visual interest. My one bit of flair was painting the name/artwork on the side. This truck is the 'Lucky Duck'... okay, the paint job ain't great, but it was the best I could manage! 

I really couldn't decide if I wanted a mini riding on top of the truck or not. I went back and forth several times before deciding to make the figure removable. So, I drilled little pins into its feet and corresponding holes in the top deck. These hold her firmly in place, but when she is removed the holes are tool small to notice - so that worked well!

One day, I'd like to have a whole 'convoy' for my marines. But, I'm happy to build this up slowly.

Space Hulk by Pub Light

Sunday before last saw me back in the pub for another round of first edition Space Hulk! Once again, I took on the role of the genestealers, while my two gaming buddies each took a squad of marines (played here by Steel Legion and Karskin troops). We played 'Mission Five: Decoy' from the main Mission Book. I can't remember ever playing this mission before, but selected it because it just fit on the pub table!

The mission tasks the marines with getting 5 of their 10 guys across the table and out the exit. In truth, I thought the marines blew it in the opening turns of the game, when they got bottled-necked at an early cross roads and had their flamers stuck in the middle. I perhaps didn't go after them quite as hard as I could have at that moment, but I have always been more of a games master than a competitor*. Anyway, the game is still notoriously hard for the marines, even when the stealer player isn't the smartest.

We also adopted one house rule for the game, saying that when a flamer trooper runs out of ammo, they can switch to a pistol, which only rolled one die, hitting on a 6. This actually proved crucial in the late game, as the Steel Legion flame trooper racked up an impressive number of pistol kills, defending a crucial corner before finally being taken down (that's him with the plasma gun in the photo!). 

In the end, the marines just managed to get the 5th guy off before everyone else was dragged down by aliens. Another turn, or a bad command points draw on that last turn, and they wouldn't have made it.

I am continually impressed by how this very old game design continues to deliver great play experiences. 

* In my defence, the cover of the first edition box proudly proclaims the game to be '3D Role-Play'. Though Rick Priestly once told me that they only put that on there because RPGs were so big at the time.

Monkey Slush

 It was said that 10,000 monkeys, typing on 10,000 typewriters, would eventually produce Shakespeare. ‘Artificial Intelligence’ may prove this true. What isn’t said is that 10,000 humans would have to read this mountainous pile of monkey-slush, almost of all of which will be closer to shake-poo than Shakespeare. Ask yourself, do you really want to be a monkey poo reader?

Pyrkon in Poznan, Poland!

It's official. In June I will be a guest at Pyrkon, a large geek-gathering in Poznan, Poland!

I have never been to the convention before... in fact, I've never been to Poland before, so it should be loads of fun. 

While the program is still being worked out, I am planning on giving a talk about writing games and also participating in a few games of Frostgrave and The Silver Bayonet. 

Last year their miniature gaming guest was Jervis Johnson - so I've got some big shoes to fill! 

More news as I have it, but if you are Polish (or looking for a new geek adventure in another country!) and you love miniature gaming, please make sure to come by and say 'hi'. I'll be practicing how to say hello in Polish, but that'll probably be the best I can do.

Rangers of Shadow Deep Compendiums...

I’m really looking forward to the release

of Rangers of Shadow Deep: A Gathering of Heroes. You can pre-order in the USA here, UK & Rest of World here and you’ll get the PDF now. Or you can wait to see what kind of deals North Star does with the book and figures. However, the book has naturally raised a lot of questions. These are the same kinds of questions that always come up when dealing with books of collected material – questions that have plagued game publishers for decades. 

As I said before, I mainly created A Gathering of Heroes to get a big, beautiful book! I included new material because I had some new exciting material that I wanted to present in the best-looking way, and I included older material both to make the book big enough to justify publication but also to give that material the A-star treatment. I wanted to give people the option to buy the better-looking book, but not force them to just to get the new material – which is why the book will have a low ebook price when it is officially released.

If this book goes well, I hope someday I will do something similar with the 3 supplements that currently aren’t collected (Across the Wastes, Dungeons Dark, and Tenebrous Citadel). I don’t know when (or truly even if) that will be. My question – are there people that would like to see these three supplements collected into an Adventure Compendium 2 (to match the Adventure Compendium 1 that I published?). This would contain no new material and would literally just be the three books bound together. The only real plus is having them in one book and getting a cover to match Adventure Compendium 1. Let me know your thoughts in the comments. And just for fun, and for those who might be wondering, here are the 10 Archetypes contained in A Gathering of Heroes: 

Red Hawk Knight

Chthonian Mage 

River Shark 

Servant of Seth 

Varakian Archer

Vampire Hunter 

Scrollmaster of Melnoth 

Encarnoth Delver 

Wasteland Firesword 

Shadow Deep Survivor or Defector