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ImperialStarShop Mat Review

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Armada Display board – final

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Armada Display board – some paint

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Painting Squadrons

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Braha’tok Gunship

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Old Stuff and Spring Cleaning

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Necromunda – Walls

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Necromunda – Ganger “Farok”

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Necromunda – Leader all done

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Necromunda – Two more Orlocks

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Tournaments

Wet Coast GT Armada 2019

Posted on April 21, 2019

Someone pointed out that I had gone in a year from learning to play Armada (almost) at WCGT, to running the event there. I’ve wanted to run an event for a while, I had some ideas of things I wanted to try with it, and then The Outer Rimjob Podcast sent me some tournament swag and I’ve been trying to block out the time to arrange it since. WCGT was perfect, as my main stumbling block was having a space to play!

One of the things I wanted to do was to use a solitaire system to make “byes” more interesting. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to do this, which sucked because I had 2 byes today! 🙂

We started at 9:30 and had planned to play 4 games, where usually we start at noon and play 2 games. It was a special occasion and I wanted to mark it with a different format. I love the 2-game format, it fits perfectly with my schedule. But sometimes you just need an all-day event!

Here’s a couple photos from round 1, I didn’t take a lot.

This next photo is the deployment from my first game — I choose Fleet Ambush. I’m not convinced it was the wrong choice, but I got rolled in this game. 🙂

Everyone had a great time, and really enjoyed playing 4 games in a day. We were all surprised that it could be done without killing ourselves! I know from experience playing WHFB/40k that 4 games in a day is a super rough day, but I think being a little flexible about timing, starting a little late or early depending on when folks were around, setting expectations up front (and making sure the schedule is communicated well) and being hard about the game timing worked out really well. Most games ended before the end of the round!

ORJ had advocated for 2 hour rounds with dice down immediately at the end of the 2 hours. I talked with our local community about that, and someone with a lot of experience (who unfortunately didn’t end up making it) suggested that this could be abused by certain lists. We discussed it, and instead decided to go with “after 1:45, no new rounds can be started” and this worked out really well. We started early a couple rounds because people had time, and it just worked.

 

And then the prize pool! Top left and heading right:

  • Cards I made
  • FFG S4 dual-sided Yavaris/Suppressor
  • (next row) FFG S4 dual-sided Boosted Comms/Slaved Turrets
  • Outer Rimjob Lando Calrissian
  • Outer Rimjob Bail Organa
  • (next row) Outer Rimjob Cymoon
  • (next row) Outer Rimjob Kuat
  • FFG S4 Acrylic redirects

The acrylics are weird, because they’ve been printing them on white plastic for the last few seasons and now they’re back in the clear acrylic. I’m happy — the clear looks much much better — but it’s odd that they switched for a short period of time.

 

You’ll note the first in the list — what I did have time for, was making cards! Here are some photos.

Here are some links to my inspiration:

 

Front: https://alternativemovieposters.com/amp/rogue-one-star-wars-story-travis-ruiz/

My first inspiration was the movie image of the ISD over Jedha, then I went to Google image search to see what it looked like. While there, I saw this alternative movie poster that really drew me in. I’m not really good at drawing detailed images, but this one had a great mix of geometric shapes that I thought I could use to work from. While working on it, I blurred some of the edges because the strong pixel edges didn’t look great. At some point I added a drop-shadow to one of the things, and I immediately thought of Super Mario World and how it was built of layers of 2 dimensional objects. I also thought of Star Wars Epic Yarns (because I have a child) and felt scenes, which this really reminded me of. Or maybe of like paper art, where one layer is built on top of another. You see where I went. So I tried to texture multiple layers of 2 dimensional objects.

When I was done, I didn’t know what upgrade card it should be. I had originally wanted to make it double sided, with a rare neutral Imperial-box-only and a rare neutral Rebel-box-only card on each side. But when I was done, I didn’t want to draw another thing so then I needed a back, and a upgrade card this image would work with. Duke suggested Hardened Bulkheads, and it fits.

 

Back: https://imgur.com/gallery/9wowx

I took this and started drawing the outside yellow and the inside symbols in yellow. It looked a little empty and I didn’t want to exactly copy what was there, so I added some gradient lines in Rebel orange. Duke asked if I could do Imperial blue opposite, and I didn’t know there was an Imperial blue so I found it and added those gradient lines. Then the yellow symbols didn’t work, so I changed them to be the same colours as the lines and BOOM, perfect.

 

I had a bunch of them printed, so I’ll be giving them out to random folks for a while. Hit me up at rythos42 at gmail dot com if you want me to mail you one! (or if you live in Vancouver, come to Ages 3 and Up for an event :))

Featured Images

Old Stuff and Spring Cleaning

Posted on March 10, 2019

It’s been 6 months since I posted. I can’t remember if I wrote about this, but I’ve discovered since having a baby that I don’t paint if I don’t have an event or regular gaming time. I really like painting, but I don’t love it on it’s own. And with the kid, I’m not gaming that regularly so I’m not painting and so….I’m not posting about painting.

We did a kitchen renovation at the start of this year and after we had packed up all our kitchen into our storage space, it showed us just how much garbage we had in our storage space. A bunch of games that I just don’t see myself playing anytime in the next 10 years so why bother taking up space with them?

My tradition with stuff I used to love but don’t anymore is to take a photo and use that to convince myself I don’t need the actual thing anymore. So you might get a couple posts of old stuff for a bit. 🙂

Here are two pieces of terrain I was so proud of back in the day.

This one is the more recent of the two. I had this grand plan for a Big Mek table with a hangar bay and planes and shit like that. The only piece I built was this attempt at a crashed rocket that never really looked the part and was shit terrain to boot. The only part that looks good is the very nicely done layering of dirt and dead grass. 😛 Here’s a post from way back in 2010 when I wrote about it originally!

The next piece saw more play because it was actually useful as terrain. A ruined little corner of an ork fortification. Less nicely done layering, but I agonized over how to paint the walls so they weren’t just one solid colour. This is about when I started experimenting with washes, and I’d had enough failures on flat surfaces to know that I was going to have to deal with tide marks. I think I did ok with this one.

Both have been relegated to the trash bin now. I almost started playing 40k recently, but the timing and a lack of enjoying the game made me stop again. Which means I don’t need 40k terrain taking up valuable space in my loft.

Thanks for the fun, terrain!

Featured Images

Necromunda – Walls

Posted on July 29, 2018

I took and uploaded these photos months ago – they were a thing I painted in the middle of that big lull I had, but I was so lully that I neglected to post the photos at all.

I bought the new Necromunda box set because I love the shit out of Necromunda and wanted the terrain and tiles so I could play the 2D version. I’m sick of carrying terrain from a back room, pulling terrain out of boxes, praying it isn’t destroyed, and then reversing the process after a game. 2D terrain is making me happy, so I did a really rough paint job on these guys (but still nice) and have stacked them in a tupperware that I carry to games.

I couldn’t even tell you how I painted them, it was so long ago. Just that I did! 🙂

Featured Images Work-in-progress

Necromunda – Ganger “Farok”

Posted on July 26, 2018

I thought I’d posted this conversion and set about writing about it in the past tense, when I found I couldn’t find an article to link to.

This is an Orlock model with a Genestealer Cultist shotgun on it. It fits really well, with only a lot of putty in his shoulder joint, and a little bit of putty in the hand/gun connection.

There’s a story. So I was agonizing about shotguns. My gang has 4 of them, and there are…zero on the Orlock sprue. Worse, the Forge World Orlock weapon expansion sets only have a single regular shotgun. Which is absolute garbage. So I did some research on third-party shotguns, decided I didn’t want to spend that much to ship a couple bits from Europe and tried to find someone to sell me the GSC bits.

Found a dude on Facebook, and he was hard to get ahold of after he’d said “yeah, I can trade those”. In fairness, he was just giving them to me, so he didn’t have a lot of incentive. But after I hadn’t heard from him after 2 messages I’d sent over 3 days, I figured he’d had enough of me. I bought some shotguns from Bitz of War, costing $10 in bits and $10 in shipping. Annoyed, I spread my annoyance to CHOP! chat enough that I think I annoyed everyone else too.

2 days later, Facebook guy contacts me, we set a time to meet and it works out.

The Bitz of War order still hasn’t arrived. >.>

This guy got the same paint job as the rest of the basic members of the gang.

I really like the scheme. It’s easy enough to paint and replicate, and it looks super nice with some good contrasting colours. It’s kind of a scheme I’ve wanted to do with my ancient Orlocks for a decade or more, but never wanted to strip them and repaint them.

And then a photo of the whole gang so far! I want the BoW order to come in so I can do another 3, and then I need to figure out what to do with the juve in my gang. So far I’m using an old Orlock juve model, but it looks weird. Stoked with how they are turning out!

Featured Images

Necromunda – Leader all done

Posted on July 19, 2018

After doing some putty and conversion work the other day, and with a foundation in the paint scheme I had set already, this guy was pretty easy to make look awesome!

The only real difference in the scheme was to paint his armour in Calgar Blue, a somewhat lighter pastel blue. This received a couple shades of Nuln Oil and drybrushes with Runefang Steel and Ushapti Bone to weather it just the right amount!

Featured Images

Necromunda – Two more Orlocks

Posted on July 16, 2018

I painted these two guys at the same time because they were the only 2 left that I had assembled. They were painted the same as the last guy, and I’m loving this colour scheme! It’s a little less yellow in person though, closer in colour to the bottom photo.

That’s a champion with a Heavy Stubber, and a Ganger with an autopistol and a fighting knife, and he has blasting charges in his pockets. I’m thinking I should paint their names on their bases, because it’ll help link them to the cards I have for each model.

Work-in-progress

Necromunda – A New Leader

Posted on July 10, 2018

I bought my Orlock leader Carapace armour so I wanted a new model to show that. I bought some of the Tempestus Scions because they are both cool looking, and available in store. (I hate going to the store and being unable to buy what I want…I don’t want to wait for my model impulse buys!). My leader has Marksman and Overseer, and I’m told that’s a combo leading him to sit in the back a bit, as opposed to the frontline fighter I was aiming for. I missed. Maybe next gang I’ll do better…

I did a little head swap, although the Scion heads are awesome, I wanted to set him firmly as a Necromunda model. Then I cut up one of the hot-shot lasguns in the kit, and a smaller bolt gun I had in my bitz box and put them together. Lastly I carefully sculpted a ratty cloak, rather than using the very official looking Scions backpack.

The result, pretty bad ass.

The head isn’t great, but I don’t know if there are any heads that would have looked great on this body — the armour is so big compared to the head. This head, with the crazy Bane-like mask looked less bad than others.

I’m still torn on his equipment loadout. Is a boltgun the best choice? He’s the only guy in the gang with WS 3+ and it seems a waste to have him in the back ranks shooting, particularly since Orlocks have Combat and Ferocity as their Primary skills. It doesn’t exactly scream “Craig, you’re making the best choices!!!”

 

 

Featured Images

Necromunda – Orlocks

Posted on July 4, 2018

As I wrote last time, I haven’t been painting for the last few months at all due to baby and also a general lack of things I might paint for. I find deadlines very motivating, and “next game day” is a deadline of sorts, but since I haven’t been going to any game days, I have no deadlines!

I started a Necromunda gang because I have fond memories of the game and there are enough people in my club interested in playing. I assembled the models, played a game and then put them on the shelf, not expecting to get another game in any time soon. Then two weeks later I had another game, and once again explained that the models with no arms had shotguns…so I’ve reprioritized finishing these guys off!

Here’s the first colour scheme test model!

This is my champion with a Combat Shotgun. He’s a beast! He’s painted:

  • Ushapti Bone on his shirt and pants.
  • Tallarn Sand on his boots, loin cloth, gloves and headband.
  • Runefang Steel on his weapons and armour and the base.
  • Snakebite Leather on the base dirt. I think I’ll change this to something more dark on the next iteration.

The highlight layer is:

  • Mix the Ushapti with some White.
  • Mix the Tallarn with Dheneb Stone
  • Mix the Ushapti+White with some Dheneb Stone for his flesh.

Funny story — I hadn’t realized that Dheneb Stone wasn’t a colour anymore until I was talking with a friend who wondered why I wasn’t using Rakarth Flesh for everything like he was. We were 3 minutes into the conversation when I did a quick search and found out they were the same colour. 😛 Dheneb Stone is the best!

Next up is:

  • Reikland Fleshshade over the flesh, to take him from an albino guy to a slightly more tanned guy.
  • Seraphim Sepia over…everything else.
  • Lamentor Yellow on his arm and head band.

When that all dried I did:

  • Nuln oil in the recesses of his body and clothing, and all over his gun.
  • Drakenhof Nightshade over the steel and in the recesses of the base, and in the deepest cracks of his armpits and groin.
  • Highlight the steel back up a bit with a light touch of Runefang Steel on the edges.

The photo above is where I got to with that. Then a little bit of:

  • Eyes, I hate eyes. Dheneb Stone in the pupils, Nuln oil in the eye recesses, then I tried to do Ice Blue which didn’t look good, then mixed with Kantor Blue which didn’t look good, then just a touch of black which finally did look good.
  • A bit of Ushapti in places to clean up a couple water marks that had been left behind by the shades.

I think he looks pretty much exactly how I wanted!

Musings & Meta

Star Wars Armada – Solitaire

Posted on June 1, 2018

It has been more than 6 months since I posted anything. I’ve thought about this blog about once a month, but since I haven’t had an urge to paint anything, I haven’t posted anything. I’ve mostly been exercising, doing a little travelling, and trying to weave in seeing the latest nerd movie in between taking my daughter to the pool and circus and making 3 meals a day for the family. It’s a good life, but it doesn’t include any painting.

And the least of the reasons it doesn’t, is because I’ve been playing Star Wars Armada, both in a couple tournaments and on VASSAL. Which does not require any painting. 😛

However, in my regular fashion I had to find a project to build something in the game system, so I found a solo scenario and upon playing it a few times thought it was lacking in some features, and was to easy at 400 points. It had been designed before the game had been released, so of course it needed updating! I playtested it a bunch and wrote some rules and designed some cards, and am now releasing it into the wild.

Download

Contribute!

Here are some photos.

Mid-playtest, using an MSU list I had been playing against Duke and at a local tournament.

The station’s card, showing shields remaining and any critical hits applied as well as which section on the station it is.

 

One of the stations target priority and effect cards. Each turn the station gets one of these to tell you how to play it.

If you play it, shoot me a message with any ideas you have! Or feel free to fork it on GitHub!

Playing

The Tale of New Archeotech City – Cycle #1

Posted on December 12, 2017

I hadn’t even purchased the new Necromunda box before I started planning out a campaign.

The prologue (Google Docs).

After a sleepy cycle in New Archeotech city, not much had changed. A few small and insignificant gangs skirmishing on the outskirts was new, but it wasn’t close enough or violent enough for the citizens of the town to do much other than continue their day to day routines.

With Emperors Day just around the corner, and all legal entities of the Necromundan Hive Primus preparing for a single hour of rest in the middle of their regularly scheduled shift, it could be that the next cycle continues to be relatively quiet.

Or perhaps, things are just getting started…