2017, a review

This won't take long, I ran through last years post, to pick a few of my favourite minis painted over the year. Here's my top ten.

Ummm, ok. I guess that's it. *looks again* Yup. Those are the grand total of miniatures I finished painting last year. I still haven't even finished the base on the Brainwaster.

2017 was not a year for miniature painting. For one, the closure of my local gaming haunt meant I got out of the habit of getting regular games. I also have been getting my gaming fix by running through the Horror on the Orient Express for Call of Cthulhu.

So is that it for the year in review? Well, I did get a few games of Rogue Stars in over the summer. And I have been playing Widower's Wood and Frostgrave with the Big 'un. Including 2 games over the Christmas break.

For 2018, I'm not entirely sure I have my painting mojo back. Work has also been a factor, and I can't see that changing soon. I would like to try to get my hand back in. I'm close, as I have bought a few WhizKids prepainted minis, to use as beasts and wandering monsters for Frostgrave with the Big 'Un, so I'm hoping that will help.

That and getting back into blogging, as that was one of the reasons for starting this blog in the first place.

Here's to you all. May 2018 bring you all that you wish of it. May you reach all your painting goals, and may your dice roll well!

2016, a review.

So, we're well into 2017 now. I'll hold off on any commentary on how 2016 was in general, but here stick to a review of my painting for the year.


I'm not sure it was a particularly productive year, but there are some pieces I'm happy with. At least I have complete Frostgrave and Rogue Stars warbands.

 

 

 

 

Here's to 2017. May it be productive and full of gaming, modelling and painting.

Into the New Year

A belated, but Happy New year to you all! May 2016 see the reduction of our lead pile to a manageable level!

As I look back on last year in terms of my blogging, it seems to have been a game of three halves. I started the year full of good intentions, as I'm sure we all do. I had the plan to paint all my Khador casters, in my Khador Caster Challenge, and it did start well, with one a month done up till June.

Unfortunately this was when the second half of the year kicked in, otherwise known as Summer, and both painting and gaming fell to the wayside.

The last half of the year was when I got back into some gaming with some Osprey Games. Firstly with IHMN, then with Frostgrave.

And that's where this year is blending seamlessly into the last, with more Frostgrave, as there seems to be some real energy behind this game, both online, and in my local gaming group. It is also a game that has really inspired me to delve back into my lead pile and dig out some old gems that would otherwise never get played with, which is what attracts many to the game. I received the Thaw of the Lich Lord campaign book yesterday, and have read through it, and I must say it seems to make some fun additions to the game, so I'm looking forward to running through this campaign soon, while interest is still high.

2015 was the year when  the "Colore ton Monde" painting challenge finally closed it's doors, but it was also the year that The Viridian Wars blog opened, as infrequent as posts there may be.

I don't really like to have posts here that don't have any pictures, but I don't yet have anything new that is ready to post, so I went back through last years minis, and selected a few to repost here.

Onwards to 2016. What will it bring to my gaming and painting table? Well, I do not have and grand plans, unlike last year, except to finish a full warband for Frostgrave. Which will only happen if I stop painting wizards, as I only need two of those, even if they are such pretty miniatures...

There is also a painting class, here in Montreal in a week or so, so maybe I'll head over for a day of that too, knock some of the rust off after the slow painting of the last part of last year, get me back on track.

Happy 2016 to you all!

Review: The Very Hungry Caterpillar Card Game

It was the lil'un's birthday last week, and one of her presents was the Very Hungry Caterpillar card game. We sat down as a family to play it with her, and well, let's see shall we...

Rules
The cards are You start with 5 cards each, and the idea of the game is to work through the week, by playing the cards with the days of the week marked showing what the caterpillar ate that day in the story. If you don't have the card you need, then you either pick one from the pile, or play the Sunday wildcard, that resets back to Monday. You win by getting rid of all your cards, and having a butterfly card. The stated goal of the game, apart from being 'fun' is to teach kids the days of the week.


Theme
The strength of this game is in it's theme, and how well the card game matches the book. The Very Hungry Caterpillar, like all the great kids books, is a very simple story well told. The cards are all decorated with images from the book with the original Eric Carle artwork that we all know and love, and this is very appealing, as all kids love this book. It even takes me back to reading it as a kid. Very pretty.

Gameplay
The idea is that you play through your hand, learning the days of the week as you go, then win when the only card you have left is a butterfly card, just like in the story. However, this is where this game falls apart. The simplicity of the story works against us here, as the designers have stuck to the script to the detriment of the play-ability of the game. We've played through it 4 times, on two of those games, we couldn't actually play to get a winner, and of one of those, I forced the game to work due to not shuffling the deck after having gone through the pack completely once. So of the 4 games, only once came out at a natural conclusion with a clear winner. The winning of the game is pure luck, with no skill involved.

Sunday is a wild card, when you can't play anything else, you play a Sunday card, and you reset back to Monday. In reality though, all this does is reset the blocked play to another day. It's fine to have more Sunday cards, but if there are just the same number of Monday cards to all the others, you hit a wall with Monday instead. You end up running through all your Sunday resets early in the game, then being completely stuck unable to complete the game. This leads to frustration in the big'un, who gets the rules and wants to play through, and boredom in the lil'un, who, although the game is supposed to be for 3+, just isn't old enough for the rules as written, who then wanders off to do something else.

The other clunky mechanic is the butterfly card. You need one to win, but if you draw more than one, you put the other one back in the pile (it is not stated where). This just seems inelegant to me. I know there want to make it a mechanic to get the butterfly, and there are only 4 in the game, but having to put it back in the pile once you have one seems not to be the best way to make this happen.

Improvements
Overall, a poorly thought out game, with no real draw. The cards are pretty, and could be used for a matching game, but the rules are broken to the point that you'd have to start from scratch rather than house-rule some fixes, although we are going to try with making the Sunday card a Wildcard that can replace any day, but doesn't reset the game to Monday. The box is pretty, and the illustrations are fun, but there are better ways to teach your kids the days of the week. Finally, the game is supposed to be for 3+, but the reading of the days of the days of the week is beyond most 3 year old. Lil'un is now 4, and she lost interest quickly. Don't bother buying this one.

The game on Boardgamegeek.com where it was given 3.59/10. Which I think is a fair score.
Buy it, or don't, on amazon.ca.

Wild West Exodus Demo

Earlier this week, I had a demo game of Wild West Exodus. I had seen this game pass by on Kickstarter, and kept one eye on it, but in the end, although I was taken by some of the miniatures, (the not-the-crew-of-the-Serenity set in particular) there were none of the factions that took hold of my imagination enough to buy into it without trying it first.

The game I had was between the Warrior Nation and the Union army. We played with slightly cut down versions of the starter boxes, as some of the minis from the stores demo sets were still off getting painted. In the end we played with $400 of miniatures per side (they use $ as points in the game, the minis didn't cost that much!).

As a brief overview of the rules (from my 1 game), you make up your gang, and even though the trooper card has multiple wounds scores on one card (up to 5), they all act as individuals, not as a unit. Players then take turns activating up to 3 figs at a time (your choice, but you must activate 1). All rolls are d10, Rolling over the stat, with modifiers. Not rocket science.  Each fig has a number of action points, which can be spent to move, fire, aim, charge (and a couple others which I didn't get round to using). The basic troopers are pretty dull by themselves, but the presence of the special characters (bosses and underbosses) who are named/limited characters really boost the abilities of the basic gangers (at least this is the case with the Union, not surprising as they are the army faction)

Overall, I found it to be a fast game, easy to pick up, and both players are always involved through rolling to save rather than damage rolls, that and the fact you only ever have to wait a max of three activations before you get to respond. there is also an interrupt action, but I won't say much on this as we didn't use it (seems to be better for snipers).

The minis are nearer 32mm in scale (close to Dystopian Legions I think), and are plastic. They seem to hold a little less detail than the DL metal sculpts, although I didn't hold them side by side to compare. I saw a similar effect on some of the other plastic minis I have seen come out of recent kickstarters, and it may be due to having to over use the molds to fill orders fast, so it could be that this improves with time. The minis also come with a guide on how to put them together, almost unknown in a minis game.

They are also supplied with unique bases. These bases are a little more than 30mm (they may be 32mm) and instead if having the recess in the centre like common 30mm bases, which is great for basing detail, they area actually raised in the centre. This means they make the individual minis more like centrepiece models.

One nice thing about the way the game is being marketed, if you go to the store on the WWE web site, you can get the stats for each mini, so you know exactly what they do and what they cost without having to buy anything first. I like that openness.

 Here are some pics from my phone of the Union troops I put in the field:

 

...and the opponents, the Warrior Nation, quick piece of advice, don't get into melee with the Werewolf, it won't end well.

 

Overall, I really liked it for its speed of play, and interaction between the players at all times. I'm not completely sold on the softness of the plastic for the minis, and the price isn't bad for all that you get in the box, but I think I'll hold off to see how it takes off in the local store before buying into it, as there isn't one faction that I'm completely sold on yet stylistically.

X-Wing: The Miniature Game

I had my first game of X-wing last week, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The fact I won may have had something to do with it, but I digress.

I have been aware of this game since its release, but I had refrained form buying onto it for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I don't really need the expense of a new game system, secondly, I wanted to see if it took off at my local store, and thirdly, I just didn't really have the time to start a new game, after all, I was trying to get together an army, and a few interested people to start up with Dystopian Legions, and there are only so many hours in the day.

The game I played was not a normal one, no dog-fight between X-Wings and Tie Fighters, but the first game of the mini campaign that comes with the Tantive IV expansion pack, wherein I played 1 big (huge-ass) ship, to my opponents 5 Tie Fighters. This took the game into a completely different direction that its usual dog-fight routine, into one where I had to sit out 6 turns without being blasted, until I could go into hyperdrive.

My overall thoughts? I liked it. Of course I didn't get to play the normal game with X-Wings and tie Fighters dodging around zapping each other, but the rules were super easy to pick up, even if the rules I was using were not the normal ones (piloting such a huge ship is very unlike piloting a small fighter, so the game you play is very different too. A nice touch). I think I'll be finding the time to complete the campaign at least, then after that, yeah, I might be tempted to buy a box or two of X-Wings, they are pretty cool after all.

Dystopian Legions: Mercenaries, Black Wolf Raiding Party

I finally got my hands on this unit. It saw general release in April, but it only arrived in my FLGS last week. I hope to actually have them on the table soon, but in the meantime, here are my impressions of the minis.

I must say, overall I'm impressed with these guys. The flash that is there is easy to remove, the arms , for the most part, are easy to assemble, making for good poses, and 6 individual miniatures (which, for a one off unit is really to be expected at this price point, but other companies don't always deliver on this).

Box Contents:
The non-mini contents of the box are as follows. 6 basses, 5 30mm and 1 40mm. The 40mm base being for the Officer, as he is Tier 1, thereby adding Command Points to your army total. The larger base then lets you see this, so as you don't forget when adding up, and also to remind you not to add the CPs if you lose the Officer. A nice touch. The box also contains one special activation card for the unit, that may be inserted into your pack to be used in play, and lastly a selection of 4 activation cards, one for each faction, thereby allowing this section to be fielded with any of the four factions. A nice touch.

The Minis:
The box contains six miniatures in total, four ratings, or able seamen, one Officer and one Specialist. Each of the ratings are 2 part minis, with the gun and arms being separate. The Officer has both arms and weapons as separate parts, and the Specialist is the most complex of the pack, with each arm being separate, as well as two parts of ammo belt, one to be connected between the backpack and the gun, and the second to flow from the gun.From these pics it looks like flash is a major issue, but although the flash is large, it cleans up very easily, leaving little or no trace. There was a small issue with mould lines on the hats, but since the tops of the hats are flat, this too was easily resolved.

 

Ammo belt

The issue I have with these, and this is a common one to Spartan 32mm minis, and that is due to the fact the minis are very thin, especially the arms, which leads to connecting the fiddly little parts. This is a big issue with the specialist, as his gun and left arm are two pieces, which join with a very slight connection on top of the gun. This reminded me a little of the Dragoons' arms, and not in a good way. Maybe a little green stuff on the join would strengthen it, but there really isn't much space for green stuff on top of the gun (maybe I should have put it at the arm joints). There is also the ammo belt to connect, but there was no  earthly way I could have connected that in the same sitting, the glue needs a good while to cure before I go back to play with that fragile connection. In fact, I had to put a dollop of green stuff behind the belt being expelled from the gun, to ensure a strong enough bond for play. This does look a bit lumpy, but I'm sure it'll be hidden once painted.

The overall detail and sculpting on these is excellent. As with most Spartan 32mm releases. The faces are great, and their shirts even have the stripes shown in the concept art sculpted on. Of course this is only made possible by the computer aided sculpting process, but it is rather nifty. What remains to be seen is how that will translate on the painting table.