Relic Busts

Been a while since I've posted anything. I haven't done much painting lately but tonight I finally finished a small project. I recently purchased Fantasy Flight Games' Relic and it's expansion Nemesis. This game uses the Talisman game engine and is set in the Warhamemr 40K universe. The game comes  with some good little character busts that are just asking to be painted. Tonight I finished the last of them.

From the main box:

Left to right: Ogryn, Rogue Trader, Ordo Malleus Inquisitor, Ratling Sniper, Callidus Assassin

Left to right: Canoness, Tech-Priest Engineer, Sanctioned Psyker, Commissar, Ultramarine Captain

From the Nemesis expansion:

Left to right: Storm Trooper Sergeant, Eversor Assassin

The 4 Nemesis, Left to right: Eldar Dire Avenger Exarch, Genestealer Broodlord, World Eaters Berserker, Champion of Slaanesh

The sculpts overall are pretty good with the Champion of Slaanesh being the weakest (my crappy paint job on that one doesn't help any). I also stuck magnets in the base of the figures so there easy to take on and off the little stand.

Sitting on my paint table right now is a horde of Martian Lobototons so hopefully I can get them done in the next couple weeks.

Meat shields. . . er . . . civilians!

Been a while since I posted up any painted figs. Tonight I finally finished off a couple batches of figs. First up are 9 bases of 15mm Human civilians (a.k.a. Pre-Lobototons) for All Quiet on the Martian Front.

These figures are all from Alien Dungeon and are really nice.  Very detailed and lots of character.

Next up is a batch of 15mm Hittites (finally!). These are 5 bases of heavy infantry. Figures are Old Glory 15s.

Next up on my table is maybe some terrain, some Hittite chariots are almost done and I've primed all of my Lobototons with blasters for AQotMF.

War of the Ring

Recently I got in a couple games of War of the Ring 1st edition by Fantasy Flight Games. I picked this up at the MayDay auction last year I think (or was it the year before?) for if I remember correctly, $12. What a great game!  In this game one player plays Sauron and all the forces of the evil and the other plays the Free Peoples. The object being either to conquer Middle Earth or chuck the Ring into Mount Doom (for the Free Peoples) or completely corrupt the ring bearers (for Sauron).

Each sides actions are carried out by rolling action dice to determine which actions are available to you. Further play options are carried out by playing character or strategy cards. There's plenty to do and it's not just a matter of move army here, squash these guys and you're done. Do the Free Peoples player move the Fellowship closer to Mordor or do they try and push Rohan into declaring war on Sauron? Does Sauron mass his forces for a couple big hits on Minas Tirith or does he devote more resources to look for the Fellowship?

The board itself is really big, second only to my Napoleon's Triumph board.  The figures for each side are really nice. The only complaint I had is from my opponent and he wishes each nation was a different colour so it's easier to distinguish the various nations. The rest of the components are typical FFG quality - really good. It took us about 4 hours for our first game and 2 hours for our second. The game can take 3 or 4 players, but its really a 2 player game.  I think with 3 or 4 it would be rather boring and just wouldn't feel the same. Evidently FFG doesn't make it any more which is a shame as it's really a great game and I definitely recommend it.

More Tripods

Last night I finished off another group of tripods for my All Quiet on the Martian Front force. First up is a lone Scout Tripod.

This is a plastic figure that uses the same leg assembly as the Assault tripods. Next up is a pair of all metal Grenadier tripods.

I now easily have over a 1000 points of Martians ready to combat the Human hordes.

Tripods

"A monstrous tripod, higher than many houses, striding over the young pine trees, and smashing them aside in its career; a walking engine of glittering metal, striding now across the heather; articulate ropes of steel dangling from it, and the clattering tumult  of its passage mingling with the riot of the thunder."

H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds

Today I finished a group of 4 assault tripods. These are 15mm figures, although I suppose they could be used at any scale. Figures are all plastic. First is a pair of standard assault tripods.

Next is a assault tripod with black dust launcher.

Finally is an assault tripod with green gas grenades.

Next on my paint table is a scout tripod and a pair of grenadier tripods. I also have a pile of 15mm Hittites that have to get finished.

Sekigahara

I popped down to the Sentry Box yesterday to do a little shopping and one of the things I picked up was a copy of GMT's Sekigahara: The Unification of Japan. This is a reasonably simple wargame covering the 7 week campaign between Tokugawa Ieyasu and Ishida Mitsunari that culminated in the battle of Sekigahara on October 21, 1600. I was luckily able to actually get a game in last night.

In the game you move your armies of blocks around in an effort to kill your opponents main daimyo or at the very least occupy important castles and resource points.  There are no dice (yay!) so each battle is fought by playing cards to deploy your troops that you actually brought to the battle. The blocks and cards for each side are divided into the various clans that took part in the campaign. And then there's 'loyalty' cards that you can play to cause a certain number of one clan's forces to switch sides.

The game components are typical GMT high quality components. Our first game took about 3 hours to play. It's going to take a couple more plays to really get all the nuances of movement and combat down. There's not a lot of games that cover this period of Japan's history but I'd recommend this one especially if you're looking for an introductory game.

Eclipse

This past weekend I had a group of friends over for a 5-player game of Eclipse. I had heard good things about this game so I picked it up (note that it is not a cheap game). The game when boiled down is a space 4X game: expand, explore, exploit and exterminate.  When the game is first set up it looks daunting as hell, but once you get playing though it flows really nicely. I'm convinced the creators were big fans of the old computer game, Master of Orion as there's all sort of things in the game that remind me of Master of Orion. A 5-player game took us about 3 1/2 hours. I would highly recommend this game and I'm really looking forward to getting this one on the table again.