CS1 Brainwaster

There is a renaissance in old school gaming right now. With Oldhammer sites springing up all over the place. Frostgrave (and other Osprey games) inspiring gamers to get our their old lead, dust it off and put it on the table.

There is also a resurgence in old games taking on a new skin.

This post is where these two trends meet.

I am a writer for the Viridian Wars blog, which up till recently has been a once a year kind of thing, but I have been inspired to write few posts recently. Much of this inspiration has been due to me finding new uses for old minis that I love, which include a lot of the old Void range. I have ot, however, been getting in more games of Void 1.1. Nor have I found players in this city with which to do so. What I have been looking to play, however, is Rogue Stars, one of the afore mentioned Osprey games, and SLA CS1 a game from the second group which takes a much loved (cult?) RPG from the 90s, and remakes it as a modern skirmish game.

The melding of these forces has led to this.

This is me playing around with the filters on powerpoint to make a mash up of a recently painted figure from the Void VASA range of Militia, and pasting him on top of the original front cover of the SLA RPG. Of course, there are those amongst you who didn't need me to explain that, but for the younger readers, indulge me.

Here of course is the original artwork, and paint scheme inspiration for the figure, along with some better pics of the figure himself.

Of course, he is still to be based. but the painting is complete. I rather like the way the shading on the coat is based on the artwork, rather than the lighting as I would normally do.

::: Welcome to the World of Progress :::

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.

Early Presents to Myself

Got this package from Amazon earlier in the week. This is my planned gaming for the next few months.

To help me along with this scheme, I started an Osprey Wargames Montreal Group on Facebook, to try to build a local community of like minded gamers. So far it seems to be a success. We already have a growing Frostgrave group who are looking for a new campaign in the New Year, and there is much interest in Rogue Stars. I've also managed to find people interested in Black-Ops, Dragon Rampant and In Her Majesty's Name too.

The whole ethos of playing games with minis I already have appeals not only to my poor stretched wallet, but also allows me to play with so many of the beautiful minis I have that just don't get put down on the gaming table enough, if at all.

Of the three books here, I think finding an opponent for Chosen Men will be the hardest, as the historical gamers are few and far between from what I've seen. Still, I've had one nibble...

Rogue Stars Nickstarter now online

The eagerly awaited Rogue Stars took one step closer to being in the hands of gamers yesterday with the launch of the North Star Games Nickstarter for the book and miniature line. For those of you who have not yet been involved in a Nickstarter, this is not a crowdsourcing event, but a pre-order system, with a 10% discount for those that sign up before November the 8th.

As a means of getting hold of the wonderful Mark Copplestone minis for this game at a discount rate, this is well worth it. Not so much for the human characters, but for the aliens and robots, which I think look really good. I'm also looking forward to painting some outlandish skin-tones on some of those alien models for fun!

Any local players who want to get in on this with me to save shipping, let me know!

Rogue Stars Video

Wargames Illustrated have released this 'Unboxing Video' for Rogue Stars. It give a little more insight into how the game works.

Yup, that looks like a lot of fun. Count me in!

Scifi minis

Summer is winding down, and that seems to have meant I get back to the painting table. With the heavy reference on Sci-Fi gaming in my last post, it only seems fitting that the minis I have painted this week are in that genre. These are some old minis, that have been bumping around in various lead piles for quite a while Fist off, we have two old Void VASA minis, one civilian and one marine one marine. The marine was painted and previewed a while ago on some Facebook groups, but not, apparently here on my blog. She has now been transfered to a better base and finished off. The Civilian has been painted up with the thought of him being a SLA Operative for Cannibal Sector 1 despite the lack of apparent armour. He is generic enough to fit in with Rogue Stars and also the Black Ops mission I'm planning too.

One commonality these three minis have is that I busted out some freehand on all three, to greater and lesser success. The Escher Juve, for example has a knife, sponsored by MAC knives of SLA industries, whereas the Op at the start has kneepads with various freehand attempts (can you tell which film, recently available on neflix I was watching when I did the right kneepad?). The tiger pelt helmet is the freehand I'm most proud of. despite the success of this attempt, I'll be unlikely to complete the rest of her unit in the same theme.



SciFi gaming, the new frontier...

...at least for me.

I have been looking forward to two games that are on the horizon. Bot of which are Sci-Fi games, which is not my normal wheelhouse.

The first of these, which will also be the first to be released is Rogue Stars by Osprey Publishing.This will be released in December, and like all Osprey games, will be designed so that it can be played with whatever miniatures the players wish. This allows me to find a means to put miniatures on the table from Necromunda, Void, Urban War, Infinity and whatever other futuristic minis I have (like Doctor Who personalities and companions). I know little of this game, other than it seems to be a points based squad construction skirmish game. Less like Frostgrave,and more like In Her Majesty's Name. the important thing about it is that it should generate enough of a buzz to get other players interested, and that's all it takes to get games, which is, after all the important thing. That and telling them they can use their 40K minis withour having to put a weekend aside!

The second game I am eagerly awaiting is Cannibal Sector 1 by Daruma Productions. A new game based in the World of Progress. As a player of SLA industries back in the day, I love this IP, and was convinced to part with cash to help them fund their Kickstarter, which should be fulfilled some time next spring/summer. As SLA was a game I played quite often with friends in Scotland, I'm not sure what interest there will be in my local gaming group to try it, but I was heartened to find second hand copies of the RPG in local stores, so someone was playing SLA here. The worst case scenario here is that I get all the CS-1 miniatures (which do look nice), and use them as a faction in Rogue Stars, and use that as a means of attracting the attention of other gamers. A honey trap if you will.

With both these games in mind, I have been looking through my lead pile to find minis that can be used for either game. I think I have a short list, which I have been prepping and basing, ready to get painting. The first batch of SLA-ops should hit the painting table soon!

So that's what's on the horizon, but what about games for the more recent future? Well, the winter gaming season is just round the corner, and for that, I ordered some things from amazon recently, and am now the owner of Back Ops, The Men Who Would be Kings, and Frostgrave: Into the Breeding Pits, All released from Osprey Publishing.

In terms of Play-ability, I foresee most use for the Breeding Pits expansion for Frostgrave. In terms of what it contains, this is not a campaign, like Thaw of the Liche lord (which went down very well with local players), but is the most in depth expansion of rules and options that has been sp far released for Frostgrave. There are 6 scenarios in the book, along with a host of rules for playing in dungeons, traps, and new magic options. In all it seems quite complicated (for Frostgrave), and I will have to sit down and see the best way to implement what it contains. I think I'll try to string the scenarios together into a campaign, and run that with the locals, but it will take a bit more planning, and introducing the players to what is now available.

I have heard of at least one other player in town who would want to play Black Ops. The cover, and indeed interior artwork seems to suggest it was more in the futuristic Solid Snake style game, which is a way it can be played, but the photographed miniatures in the book are more of a Black Hawk Down style. This may just be the miniatures the author had access to, and the rules seem to be able to be played both ways, so this is going in the Sci Fi bracket for me, and I'm going to put together a scenario where I can run my Urban War Triads as modern Ninjas, versus teched our Viridian Colonial Marines. That seems like it'd be a way to get people interested.

The final of the new book triad is then The Men Who Would Be Kings. This is a game that I see the least use out of in my current gaming circle. Unfortunately. One thing I was pleasantly surprised about, was the use of artwork in this book. Along with the usual photographs of pertinent miniatures, there was also judicious use of artwork from Osprey's other books. This was not something I had noticed in the other Osprey wargaming books I have, indeed, in the first expansion book for In Her Majesty's Name was notorious for having absolutely no artwork, not even photos of minis. There may have been a few reasons for that, but it is a poor show in this modern era of wargame publishing, where we have grown to expect more. I think another reason I have not noticed this use of artwork by Osprey is that the other books I have are more fantasy based, and therefore have required the commissioning of specific art. Either way, this book has 6 full page colour plates, 3 of which by Angus McBride, along with many other half page plates. I call that in itself a win. In terms of game play, it seems to be more on scale with the authors previous works, Lion and Dragon Rampant, so mid-scale, with a few units of up to 16 men for large tribal units, normal units are 12. I must say, I don't own enough historicals to run this one, but I will be trying to use it to field my Dystopian Legions miniatures. I can't see that being too much of a clash with the rules, and certainly remains in the spirit of the game, which is more based on the cinematic than the Historic.

So there we go a rahter Opsrey biased look at my near future wargaing plans. Frostgrave as a means to get people to the table, followed up with scenarios written to get player buy-in to the other games (which they already have minis for) followed by (ideally) an Osprey gaming night, where folks come along to play variations of these games and others. Okay, the last bit is a bit of a stretch, but I'm working on the owner of my FLGS to make it more likely, as he gets to sell the books and minis to support such a venture.

As they say, watch this space!