Kickstarter - THMiniatures Return With Another Terrain Offering

Last year I pledged on a Kickstarter run by Thminiatures, a Canadian company that made resin terrain. The Kickstarter was successful, the product fantastic and they delivered exactly on schedule.

All in all it was a great experience.

They have just announced their new Kickstarter today.

Based on last year's experience I have pledged again this year. I have every confidence that the Kickstarter will be just as smooth on their second run.

One of the things I like most is that they allow you to choose what pieces you want so you can tailor to your needs.

One option is to paint as Lava but I am also considering using the pieces for a Nurgle table.

Good luck to the guys.

Age of Sigmar - The South Coast GT

While I am not a fan of Age of Sigmar (either from a fluff or game mechanics point of view), I can certainly appreciate a success when I see one.


Over the weekend the South Coast GT in Portsmouth, England attracted 124 participants to the two day event. From my understanding this is the clearly the largest AoS tournament/event ever and probably twice as big as the next largest (held in Cardiff).


The amount of work that the organisers did to ensure they had an attractive tournament proposition really reflects well. They will be extremely heartened by the response.


The UK seems to be the AoS heartland where it appears to be at the forefront of tournament events. It will be interesting to see how The Ninth Age competes when the full rules are released. There seems to be less take-up of Kings of War in the UK. Certainly at least one of the AoS podcasts was extremely negative towards Mantic when I lasted listened.


Across the rest of the world the pick-up for events seems to be "patchy" to say the least. I understand the Midwest in the USA seems to play it (though I'm not sure how many it attracted to Adepticon) but I've seen little events advertised for Europe, the rest of the USA, Australia or New Zealand.


What is encouraging for those in those locales interested in AoS, is that the SCGT organisers now have a tried and tested tournament system. It will be interesting to see if it is maintained as a living document so others can benefit from their efforts.


So well done to the SCGT organisers, I'm glad your efforts were rewarded.

Weekend Hobby Update

As you can see from the previous posts it was quite busy on the hobby front over the weekend.


I managed to print off ten trees and they will form the basis of a new forest. The next printing project will likely be one of the other Winterdale buildings, likely the outpost.


The Stone Mill was mounted on its river section and hopefully will see tabletime in the next few weeks. Coupled with the TTW Stone Bridge I now have some incentive to use a waterway in games from here. I also grassed the TTW Merchant's Townhouse and that is near ready for the tabletop.


Figure-wise, I painted the first four figures from the Mordheim "Frenzied Mob". These were the Stonemason, boy with catapult, man with fish on his head and the Living Scarecrow. The next four are now ready to be started and I'm looking to get them going this evening. I do enjoy painting these unique figures and have found that four at a time keeps me interested and ensures that they each get the necessary love.


Via our local eBay equivalent, Trade Me, I managed to pick up a few interesting figures yesterday. These included a mint Empire War Wagon, a Mordheim Sigmarite Priest, Johann the Witchhunter and a Warhammer Roleplay Warrior Priest. All were bare unpainted metal. I will be looking to paint the War Wagon up in Averland colours to match the rest of my Empire army.


Noted the other day that because of real life I hadn't played a game for over 2.5 months. Starting this Thursday, I am hosting a regular gaming night at my place for a group of local Kings of War players. Gaming room and garage allow three tables to be set up so hopefully this can develop into a long term success.


Finally, Lynne is away over the upcoming Anzac Weekend and so a group of us are going to try out "The Ninth Age" rules over the weekend. I've keyed up two days of gaming at my place. This should let us get a feel for the rules and decide if it is something we want to play.

40k Flashback - Third Edition Chaos Space Marine Codex

I am a member of TheLongWar.net Hall of Veterans. While I don't play 49k anymore I really enjoy the material these guys put out and am happy to support them will a monthly stipend.

Recently they released a YouTube video on the 3rd Edition Chaos Space Marine codex. You can watch it here:

http://youtu.be/x7CTECP1Psw

It goes through what was unquestionably in my mind the greatest army book Games Workshop ever released. CSM 3rd Ed was released in 2002. Written by Pete Haines, it was so good it went through at least three printings (there was a rumoured fourth but I always felt that was just a re-release of the second printing). I had all three of them as the book got a lot of use. In the Dunn household there were two Death Guard armies, the Emperor's Children, Word Bearers, World Eaters (Jack's), an Iron Warriors army (regular readers know it isn't finished) and Thousand Sons.

The video is a real walk down BITD-land. It goes through the various Daemonic Gifts even mentioning the difference between Daemonic Speed and Daemonic Flight (Silly Hilly!!!).

There will be a second part in the next fortnight.

It was great to bathe in the nostalgia of a time when Plague Lord Cothrax and Noise Lord Challis Drant strode the battlefields like colossus winning six Games Workshop Grand Tournaments between them (including the only ever Australian Grand Tournament). On their path of destruction they destroyed the myth of Haakon Ironwolf consigning him to little more than a side note in their glorious tale.

But check out the video. Reminisce about the Dark Blade, wallow in the goodness that were Combat Drugs and relive the glory days of the Shattered Legions.

And then go and curse the name, Gav Thorpe!

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Some 3D Trees from Winterdale

Over the past day and a half I've been printing some of the Winterdale trees to see what they come out like. In the Kickstarter they have four variants and I've been cycling through them to build up a stock.

Here are two I've cleaned up. The one on the left is Wildwood while that on the right is Gnarly. There are two of each variant.

Here's another shot of the trees. They rake 2-3 hours each to print on my printer. Once painted up you can add clump foliage or you can leave them bare (undead or chaos theme)

When you print them they come with printing supports that are easily clipped off. Generally it is 2-3 minutes to clean them up.

Given a week I reckon I could easily print 30-40 up. Currently I have done 8 and that is under no time pressure.

 

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Stone Mill by River

Just a few quick snaps of the Stone Mill now it has been mounted on the river ready for gaming.

The river section is from the Battlefield in a Box set from Gale Force Nine.

Very happy with the finished piece.

 

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Frenzied Mob

The other evening I was rummaging through the drawers in one of the Dunn-geon cabinets, and I found an unopened box of Mordheim "Frenzied Mob". This was a set GW released in about 2004-05 by Direct Order only.

Checking out eBay I see that it goes for quite a high price - particularly in a pristine state.

However I knew I bought it for a reason and now that reason has eventuated! I am going to use the figures to populate the various buildings I've made and painted over the past few years.

These are a great group of figures. There is the local butcher with a string of sausages around his neck. The guy with the fish on his head - fish were a Mordheim in-joke. A scarecrow, a sullen girl, boy with catapult, two Blacksmiths, a thief, the one legged man ...it goes on.

Last night I stripped the flash and mould lines and tonight I'll prime them. Then it's painting them in groups to have them ready for the various buildings.

So if you are playing at the Dunn-geon in coming months, have a look at the building on the table. You may get a surprise.

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Lonewolf Results Analysis

Over the weekend the Lonewolf GT was held in Houston, Texas and represents the largest ever KoW event. It attracted 63 participants.

Lurker2 over on the Mantic Forum has published some stats and I have replicated them here.

Interesting 19 different armies were used. That is pretty wide coverage. What is not shown is which armies used Allies and what those allies were.

Obviously it doesn't take matchup, individual scenario or player skill into account but it gives a flavour of how things went.

 

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Reminder - Warlords Super Series "Autumn" Tournament

Just a heads up regarding the second Warlords Super Series Kings of War tournament which will be held at Warlords in Khandallah on the 7th May.

The Players Pack can be accessed here

Four rounds, 2000 points, Rulebook Scenarios.

Cost of the event is $25 or free if you are a full Warlords member.

River Mill - Painted 3D Printed Model

Over the weekend I finished painting the River Mill I recently printed on my 3D printer.

I'm happy with the finished product - of course detail isn't as crisp as high detail resin - and I'll be looking to paint up the tavern shortly.

I will be basing the model later this week using one of the Battlefront river sections so that I can use it in my next set of games.

Check back for pictures later in the week.

My next printing projects will be trees and walls.

 

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