Blast from the (recent) past

Today, after quite a pause, a blast from the recent past!

In March and April the hobby focus was mainly on getting stuff ready for PolderCon, on the 1st of May. After a great day, a bit of a hobby hiatus happened, coming down from a great hobby-high so to say. Since then, 2mm Ancients have become a distraction for the rest of May, followed by low hobby mojo in early June. Thankfully we're back at the painting table - not with Wolsung though - maybe a reason to turn this blog into more than just steampunk 💪?

Back to PolderCon: it was a blast! A great day full of wargaming, with lots of nicely laid out wargames in all themes and sizes. In the morning I did two rounds of demoing Wolsung., followed by playing a demo of Burrows and Badgers and The Drowned Earth in the afternoon. 

Had all slots for the demo filled up well in advance, with one person unfortunately having to drop out due to the babysitter falling ill just before the weekend. 

Interestingly, 3 out of 5 players already had some Wolsung lurking around in their respective piles of opportunity. Hopefully some tabletop action has reinvigorated their Wolsung Mojo 😁

The background story for the scenario is about a poker tournament in Lyonesse which happened the other night, where the Inventors, Ash&Oak and the Triad all were competing. Naturally, everybody ended up accusing everybody of cheating, and to make matters worse, the Inventors and Triad left without paying for their drinks, making Sir Zachary having to pay the whole bill! 

When the various characters run into each other around Pothill Market the next day, this can only lead to trouble 😲

Victory conditions were not complicated: kill as many opposing heroes as possible. The set up for the demo was as follows:

Ash and Oak Club: Sir Zachary Fiercebatten, Sir Lance Oakroot, Butler, Ogre Bruiser

Sir Zachary and the Butler start in the restaurant, Sir Lance and the Bruiser in the steamobile - with only enough fuel/pressure in the boiler for 2 Move Actions - clearly the staffmember responsible for firing up the boiler messed up.

Inventors Guild: Alice Tinkerly, Thorvald Nielsgard, 2 Lab Golems - all starting in the big warehouse

Triad of the Lotus Dragon: Xen Jidao, Phoenix and two Traders.  Heroes start on the second floor of the appartement building, one in front of a window facing the restaurant, the Traders are deployed amongst the Shanty Town huts on opposite sides of the table.

The gaming table - note the black Zitrone 'Dime' is out of place; in the first turn it starts on the road next to the restaurant

And some in game shots: the mist is spreading

is Xen Jidao getting out of this one?

Overall it seems everybody had a good time playing en demoing. Some brillianty heroic moments happened, with people jumping of high roofs straight into melee, the Butler being Mind Controlled into shooting Sir Zachary and plenty of other steamy punky action - well worth the time and effort that went into preparing the game 😁 More than enough reason to return next year....

The Game Master contemplating his next move

Have you ever met my cousins?

The preparations for Poldercon are going as planned. With friends and family volunteering as guinea pigs, I've  been able to run 3 try-out sessions. Each session has led to some adjustments to the set up and the scenario, hopefully resulting in an enjoyable demo on May 1st.

Meanwhile I've painted a couple more miniatures, which have been staring at me across my hobby desk for several weeks now. They are some reinforcements voor the Scylla. The models below come from the same starterbox. The painting method was the same as with the Scylla models mentioned in a previous post, mainly using Contrast Paints over a 'zenithal primer'. 

Vito and Roberto Vendetta are the Heroes from this set, and despite being family (brothers, maybe?), they are very, very different. These differences go well beyond Roberto's slight tan and Vito's unhealthy pale complexion - although for someone who's undead Vito's paleness might actualy be considered a good thing. 

In the game, Roberto is a dangerous sniper with an extremely powerful gun. He's kept in check by only being allowed one specific target at the start of the game, and he can only pick a new target after the previous one has been taken out.

Vito on the other hand, wields a tommy gun and has stats that are not overly impressive, but very suitable for an undead Halfling. What makes up for this, is that any time a model with the 'Vendetta' ability (usually a Hero) is taken out within 6" of him, he gets a free activation. If a model with the 'Famiglia' ability (a.k.a. Henchmen) gets taken out, Vito gets +1 G in his next activation, making him more accurate.

The Henchmen in this set are two Halfling workers, of which you get two for the cost of  '1' in the game. They provide some - not quite deadly- close range fire support and serve as expendable harassment 'troops'. Keeping them close to Vito so he can 'avenge' them when they inevitably get taken out sounds like a good strategy.

Then there are two big cousins, an Ogre Thrower and an Ogre Gangster, providing some much needed muscle in a faction dominated by weedy Halflings. The Ogre Thrower has the interesting ability to throw enemies through the air, potentially at other enemies. Ogres are not known for being great shots though 😅 

 

Dinner by candlelight

 

After a hard day of fighting crime, working on extraordinary inventions or a daring heist, what's more rewarding than taking your loved one out for a romantic dinner by candlelight?

Trattoria La Romantica is said to offer the best of Scyllan cuisine in the whole of Lyonesse - something culinary journalists are curiously reluctant to disagree with.

The restaurant has ample seating and a nice roof terrace, from which one can watch the busy people of Lyonesse passing by. Inside, the decor is heavily influenced by native Scyllan styles, so one can truely imagine being on holiday in Scylla.

For costumers who are unhappy with the quality of the food served to them, there is a suitable arrangement by which these culinary barbarians can be disposed of.

A trip to Ikea

Back on the blog after spending a bit of holiday in the UK, during which I got myself signed up to host a Wolsung demo game at PolderCon on the first of May. 

For those who don't know, PolderCon is a wargaming event in Utrecht, in the Netherlands. This year there'll be 20+ different games to play, all hosted by volunteering wargaming enthousiasts. 

The day is divided into 4 time slots of 90 minutes, two in the morning and two in the afternoon. For each time slot players can book a spot to participate in one of the demo games. How many spots there are at the table differs from game to game, but is usually something between one and four. This makes the demo's quite 'up close and personal', without the distractions/interruptions of others who're just passing by.

The clubs I'll be using for the game will be the Ash & Oak, Inventors and Triad of the Lotus Dragon. Selection of miniatures is based on the contents of the various starter boxes, so there'll be 2 Heroes a side plus 2-3 henchmen. All the mini's are already painted (some of my older work, pics will follow), as is the bulk of the terrain. That means there's plenty of time to 'waste' on small details 😀

First up is the appartment building, which could use some furniture. The downstairs is going to be a shop, with the upstairs being the living area. All the bits are from one of Mantic Games' Terrain-Crate kickstarters. 

Painting was kept simple, with washes and Army Painter Speedpaint to help creating a little depth. I'm very pleased with the look 'Hardened Leather' gives to the wooden furniture on the first floor. Just one coat was enough. 

The blue chairs where done with 'Highlord Blue', which worked well despite the many flat surfaces on the chairs. I think it did a better job than 'Ultramarines Blue' would have done. One thing that did put a spanner in the works is that I was to quick with trying to do some touch ups with the blue paint: apparently the first layer hadn't dried properly yet and was reactivated by the new layer. This is why the darker chair turned out more blotchy in places - we'll just pretend it gets too much attention from cats 😸.

Here's a close up of the wooden furniture, plus some street furniture and markers for parcels and packages. Next up is more stuff to put out on the street

 

A trip to the dark side of town

After a covid outbreak in the house and distractions from numerous other sources, here's another update.

I got seriously distracted from the Inventors that were mentioned in my previous post. At first more Scylla figures caught my attention, which will be ready some time next week. Also there were those Shanty Town hovels that were lying around primed and ready to be painted (many thanks to my friend Stefan, who very kindly passed his hovels on to me). 

Before priming, all hdf was sealed by applying shellac (https://www.rustins.ltd/rustins/our-products/indoor/shellac-sanding-sealer). I learned about shellac in a video from OnTableTop's  'Gerry can ...' series in which Gerry shows you how you can seal your mdf/hdf. The reason for sealing is that by doing so, you stop the mdf from absorbing all your paint, which makes it much easier to get good coverage. 

I must say I think shellac works great! Applying it is quick and easy (I use foam from a blister pack to do this), it dries fast and isn't overly smelly/messy. Once dry, I only needed one coat of grey primer from a spray can to get perfect coverage. A downside of shellac is that it's a bit expensive, but I recon the bottle I got will last me for several years. I'll probably will also save plenty of time, effort, money, exposure to fumes and complaints from my neighbours as I'll need far fewer cans of spraypaint to get decent coverage, 

After applying a medium grey primer, I applied different browns and a dusting of copper and green to the various roofs. Walls, doors and windows were painted using mainly artist en masonry paints. Coverage of these colours wasn't that important, because I was aiming for a weathered, stripy look.

Weathering was done using some washes, drybrushing (with a very big brush) and 'Streaking Grime' from AK Interactive. To add more character, I added advertising posters which can be found here: 

https://1drv.ms/b/s!AgCNwicNek7bjWhzQu3RQOH_5nK7?e=9W0GAe

(the link on the Wolsung webpage isn't working, so I made a scan of the original print that comes with Micro Arts' Wolsung Advertising Columns) 

Below you can see some pictures of the finished result, plus two shots of one of the locals you can encounter in this part of town.

Clank, clank, tick-tock-tick-tock

 A quick little update with some models for the Inventors. This week I painted a bunch of golems, in the shape of a 3 Clockwork Servants and a 2 Wind-up Soldiers. They are nice little models to paint and are a quick and easy way to increase your henchmen choices. 

The little Clockwork Servants help your other, bigger, golems to perform at maximum efficiency. Lubricating joints, tightening nuts (no pun intended) and boosting the batteries - there's nothing these little fellas can't do. They're also handy for holding your tea while you're trying to decipher those oil-stained blue prints to find out where the red wire needs to go.

Playing with toy soldiers becomes a lot more exciting when the toys actualy shoot back. The cork guns of these troops have a limited range to minimize collateral damage - so one doesn't need to fear upsetting the neighbours by stray corks hitting their cat.

Next on the painting table are more Inventors to boss the golems around, plus an extra Lab Assistent and the pinnacle of golemic science: the Biocognitive Golem.

It's all in the family

Since the previous post I've been hard at work getting some paint on the Scylla. For these maffioso Halflings I wanted to try a different painting method than the traditional grey/black undercoat followed by layers and highlights. I decided to give Contrast Paints in combination with 'zenithal priming' a try. 

I first primed the models with Uniform Grey from The Army Painter, followed by a light spray of GW's Wraithbone from the top at a 45 degree angle. The idea behind this is that shadows become darker and highlights become lighter, provided that you let the primer shine through the actual paint your using. Contrast Paints are ideal for this, as are the various similar products that are now available (like The Army Painter Speedpaint or Scale 75 Instant Colors).

You can also use this approach with normal paints, but that requires you to carefully thin them down and applying them in very thin layers. This can create very nice results, but to me this feels like quote a slow proces, where it's the speed that made me think of this method in the first place.

I'm very pleased with the results, especially considering how fast and easy it was. Apart from the zenithal priming and using Contrast Paint, I only did a bit of drybrushing and the odd extra highlight (mainly for white cuffs and the like)

First here's little Julia Vendetta, carrying her favourite octopus pet - Octavian. Julia is the youngest of the Vendetta family and a much loved - if somewhat wayward - granddaughter of its matriarch. 

She's flanked by two of her slightly taller bodyguards. Size doesn't matter all that much when you're holding a tommy gun 😁

Two big cousins for those occasions where one needs muscle in addition to hot lead.

And the leader of the famiglia, La Donna: Sybilla Vendetta. In the background are her favourite tentacled friends from another dimension, who she summons if people don't show proper respect to the elderly.