Don't Look Back (1) - Unboxing

 Originally backed in April through Black Site Studios Backroom system, I just received my Don't Look Back second edition tier 2 bundle. I believe this one was originally supposed to deliver around Halloween but as these things go it's a little delayed. Unfortunately I'm neck deep in Legions Imperalis so I went ahead, opened and took inventory and already put all of this back into the box and onto the shelf of shame. For now though here is a quick look at whats coming down the road. 

First of all we have the new second edition book. You can see its quite a bit thicker than the original. It comes in a neat little slipcase and it's super pretty. There is quite a bit of eye candy and the production quality is lovely as always with BSS. 

Included in the starter bundle type deal is the Killer and Hero expansions. Like all of the Don't look back stuff, these are supplied in VHS cases. The theming is super cool but to be honest, kinda wasteful. I love the art work and aesthetic but the boxes arent deep enough to store the figures and all of these cases just take up space. 

You can see the high quality of the figures and components. I'm looking forward to getting into these ASAP. 

Included in the bundle I purchased are these five expansions. Each containing a few figures and a card or two with a few more rules.

The bundle included some stretch goal type stuff that included alt sculpts of the heros as well as a few odds and ends including some 3d weapon tokens.

There's a fun little map and a mdf measuring cleaver.

Finally the mdf terrain that comes with the set

All in all, I'm super excited to get stuck into this stuff but it will be a while before I can get really dug in. There was also a preorder bonus figure and not to mention all the stuff I picked up for 1st ed.

The End of the Year Looms Large and I've Accomplished Very Little - (This is the part where I claim to try better next time)

 Hello

What a year we've had.

Lets dive right into the list so you can follow along at home with the excuses and then well talk about what happened and whats coming next

End the year with a sub 200 Golf Score
Begin the Lord of the Rings Ringbearer Campaign
Play Spectre Ops
Print and Paint two sets of Team Fortress 2 Figures
Play To The Strongest with painted 10mm figures
Finally Try Age of Hannibal
Play a game of A Song of Ice and Fire with a painted Baratheon Force
Finish 2k points of Old Dominion for Conquest and play a game
Completely Paint 2 complete factions for Crisis Protocol
Finally Try Moonstone
Finally Try Mad Maximilian
Play at least one game of Necromunda
Try Necropolis28
Try Mordheim
Play a Game of War of the Ring
Play a game of Horus Heresy
Finish at least one Cabinet piece (resin probably)
Play both Sludge and Turnip
Try the new edition of Kill Team
Play Never Mind the Billhooks
Attend one tourney or play event
Finish my Death ray Designs City Board

Try Verrotwood
Finish my 3d printed Boarding Action board
Try One Page Rules Age of Fantasy Skirmish
Play a game of Brawl Arcane 28
Sculpt Print and Paint something of my own
Try Conquest First Blood
Play Deadzone 

(The Post Adepticon BSS inspired update)
Play Dont Look Back
Play Lunar
Play Demonship
Play Firefight
Play Violent Dark

 

 So I learned a ton about myself etc. Honestly I sorta knew I wouldn't get it all done but I'm a little disappointed in myself as usual.

The first big elephant in the room is shame golf. I bought too much again. As of writing this I'm sitting on 1029 points. Now I know that sounds like too much. Its all Legions Imperalis stuff and the associated penalty for buying it at launch. There's a snowballs chance in hell that you see some of this before the end of the year but as usual let's not hold our breath

War of the Ring, Lord of the Rings, Age of Hannibal, To the Strongest, Song of Ice and Fire, Verrotwood, Necropolis, Brawl Arcane, Conquest (small and large) and Never Mind the Billhooks and Mad Maximillian were all never started. I mean I have a boat load of 10mm ancients in desperate need of basing (and I ordered the correct bases) and I have a load of LOTR stuff but I just never got it to the table. The other games were either never started at all (necropolis) or simply never touched (ASOIAF)

Don't Look Back was originally slated for an October release and I'm still waiting on a tracking number for my batch of stuff. Mantic Firefight is still very high on my list but I have yet to start painting. Spectre is a bit of a bug because as excited as I was for the new edition, the price of shipping kept me away.

All this said I'd love to tell you I have a better plan for this year but honestly I think the move is to just reassess and pick less goals. If' I somehow manage to complete these I'll add more but I set the bar way too high for more reasons I'll sum up at the end. So here we go;

 

Paint Legions Imperalis Army
Print and Paint Legions Imperalis City Table
Play at least 3 games of Legions Imperalis with fully painted armies and terrain
Print and play Full Spectrum Dominance
Paint 2 Complete Factions For Crisis Protocol and play at least 3 games
Paint 2 Complete Forces for Shatterpoint and play at least 3 games
Play Don't Look Back
Finish Boarding Action Table
Play Country Road Z
Play Spectre (or another modern style game)
Try Dead by Lead
Try Hobgoblin
Finish at least 2 Cabinet Pieces
Play Test of Honor at least 3 games
Play Firefight with Veermyn Army
End the year with a sub 200 score

As time allows, finish goals not listed from previous year

I had an interesting year. I accepted a new position in our Training Department at work and have been transitioning to a very different role. I spent most of the year with my prusa down and out of commission. I spent a large chunk of the time very ineffectively printing boarding action stuff on a resin printer and to be frank wasted a lot of print and hobby time trying to make that project work. I tried to pick a few projects last year based off a potential interest and ended up shooting myself in the foot a bit. This time around I tried to pick a good mix or projects that I either have stuff in progress or already finished for that will allow me to mix it up a bit. The idea being to try and get in about a game a month.

The other elephant in the room is Origins. I attended Origins this year with my wife and got wildly more into board games. I began using a tracking app and played approximately 150 board games between origins and the end of the year. We have a group regularly playing Root (which is sort of like the best of both worlds with its wide faction choice) as well as not one but two legacy games being played regularly with friends of ours.

I want to hit the ground running next year, though the new job includes a lot more travel. I need to start by cleaning up the desk and boxing things up and clearing space. Between now and the end of the year, I'd like to be able to play a starter box game of Legions Imperalis. We have a 2 v 2 game currently scheduled for Jan. 21. I also have a Bambu printer on the way which should be put immediately to work on the Imperalis table before being put to work on the boarding action table. 

Figure wise obviously we have tiny wardollies doing fights in the 30th millenium but I want to crack into Don't Look Back as soon as it arrives. Try to strike while the irons hot. I have a list of Veerymyn to paint for firefight and have been chipping away on the AMG games stuff. We probably won't go to Adepticon this year in favor of origins which should cut down a bit on the spending and accumulating of figures. 

I will say, despite the numbers being abysmal. I do actually feel like I turned down quite a few figure impulse buys. Theres were several times during the year where I was at the FLGS or had a cart full of stuff online where I said "Its just gonna end up in shrink and on next years list" and I put it back. Legions is the exception as I have been waiting for this one to drop. 

Sorry for the absolute wall of text but this blog is for me and I wanted to get it on paper in some attempt to get back at it. Expect more but not necessarily good photos from me next year but for right now, none. 

If you hear from me before January it will be with a last minute drive for finished LIMP stuff and if you don't have a wonderful holiday and a happy new year and we'll see you in 2024. 

Demonship (1) - It's Here!

 As I mentioned in the Adepticon wrap-up. Demonship is a new "microgame" from MalevMinis and Blacksite studio. Its basically a sci-fi solo dungeon crawl. I managed to get a set of the terrain preordered at Adepticon and it arrived on Friday. I've got it all built now and wanted to show it off. 

 All in all it was a relatively straight-forward build. I accidentally left out a couple magnets in the "palete" looking bit. I got the whole thing built in an evening and a half and didn't really count the magnets until I realized I had already glued it together. 

 

The "alpha" rulebook I picked up at the show is neat and I am looking forward to trying the game out but since building this set the "finished" game is now available for pre-order HERE

 The set is great. Super modular, its a blast just showing it off and setting up little rooms. I was super excited to see it came with magnets and the whole thing stores right inside the base. No room for figures but I think the alpha book may fit though I haven't tried yet.

I'll check back when I've gotten the game on the table but for now, this was a reasonable build and it seriously checks my "minatures are cute" checkbox where small stuff is just sorta neat.

Lunar (1) - The Haul

 Oh look, It's another "Matt posts a pile of stuff because he has no impulse control" Post.

 This time it's Lunar by, you guessed it, Blacksite Studios. Lunar is a skirmish game set during the Cold War on the moon. It's roughly 3 to 5 figures a player and is all about fighting for resources on the moon. There's a campaign, lovely components and great resin figures.

Inside the starter you get dice, tokens, a rulebook and 10 figures as well as the cards to play with everything. Unlike Violent dark this set also comes with some clips to track all the stats with. 

The resin sets are basically a bag full of options. The game isn't WYSIWYG so I opted for stuff that'd be fun to paint and look at. The figures didnt require much clean up and went together nice. 

 Unlike Violent Dark, we got a game in already and I'm actually interested in playing more of the game. We got one game in at the "small" size and actually really enjoyed it. I was a little skeptical after our test game of Violent Dark that maybe DLB was a flash in the pan but I think VD just needs some ironing out and am going to finish painting it but wait until theres more content to revisit it. 

Next time I post about Lunar, I'll give some thoughts on the game as well as showcase what got painted already. Long story short though, this ones a winner.

Experimenting with Slap Chop and Modulorka

Hi, Long time no see.
I won't bore you with the details but it's been a busy while since I've seen you last. I changed careers, moved, and got married since I last sat down to write an actual article. Needless to say, I had a busy year. Let's dive right into the topic of discussion though and wrap with some thoughts on what's next at the end. 

If you're like me and you tend to put YouTube or miniature podcasts on in the background while you paint, you've almost definitely heard of SlapChop painting by now. The term seems to have been coined by The Honest Wargamer and you can see his original video here. Long story short the technique is as follows. Prime Black, Drybrush grey and then pure white, finally slather the mini with "contrast" paints. I put contrast in air quotes now because the technique is definitely not limited to Games Workshop's official contrast range and will definitely work with other companies equivalent ranges (like the new Army Painter Speed Paints or the upcoming Vallejo Xpress Color)

 

When I first saw this I was skeptical. My first thought was definitely something to the effect of "yeah, its called painting, why bother with the fancy names?" I'm a big fan of contrast style paints and my biggest criticism comes down to the marketing approach of "one thick coat" not being the whole story. I think like any other paint, its a tool and it should be used "correctly." The main focus of the technique is to get stuff on the table, in a reasonable amount of time, to a decent standard.

As I mentioned, this is pretty topical now, with several content creators all posting their take on it. I wanted to give it a go myself but was looking for a project to use it on. This Video by Miniature Hobbyist popped up on my feed right around the same time This Video popped up by On Table Top. GorkaMorka, 3d printing and a quick project all in one go. The stars have aligned. Modulorka is basically a free to play Ork on Ork skirmish game. Currently free to download, they also have a kickstarter and a patreon going if you want to support them. The free rules bundle comes with a single ork infantry figure. It took about two hours to print and came with both supported and unsupported versions. There was a super minor defect on my print that is more than likely my settings but I left it as it looked more orky to me anyway. 

 I printed, cured and then cleaned up the pieces and then followed the steps as instructed. Black, grey, white primer applied I began with the slapping.

 I used the relatively new Gutrippa Flesh for the skin, and then Snakebite Leather, Wyldwood, and Black Templar for the majority of the details. I was originally going to paint the club the old fashioned way but settled on the new Garaghak's Sewer. I wasn't willing to skip metalic paints however and painted all of those details with 3G Gunmetal. I also painted the base in my usual methods with a block paint and few layers of drybrushing. 

Here's the kicker. It's just like using contrasts normally but I think generally speaking the results are a lot better. In particular what this method did to the skin, club, and boots, I'm thrilled with. Some issues that stood out are the usual issues with contrast, you still need to be wary of pooling and the reality is some colors simply don't show up over dark surfaces (like the skeleton horde I used on the teeth.)
 
As I said earlier, I was a little hesitant when I first came across this whole viral sensation. Not necesarily because I didn't think it would work but more so because it was sort of being sold as a one stop shop in the same way contrast was originally. Theres still certain things I'll always paint traditionally (mostly metalics) but in general I was pretty pleased. I used the brushrage app while I painted and the whole model including the base and drybrushing was less than an hour. Now that I've done it once I could easily cut that time per model down drastically and I definitely think the added step of drybrushing is easy enough that I can't imagine using contrasts over just a white primer any more. 

It gets better

After painting this guy, writing this article and sitting down to another paint session I did an entire starter force for modulorka. All 4 guys including the bases came in at 1 hour and 46 minutes once I had a scheme. 

 

This was originally written in October of 2022.

Violent Dark (1) - Intro and Other Games April

 Hello

No secrets here that I'm sort of a fan of Black Site Studios. I think the stuff they make is neat. Our game of the year on the podcast the year it was released was Don't Look Back (second edition preordered already) and I have most of their games. There's a neat push right now through several content creators for what is being referred to as "Other Games April" this Miniac video sums it up but basically its a spotlight on indie games. In honor of the event and because I never touched this stuff after the first week, I decided I wanted to focus in and try and get my Black Site Games on the table this month if at all possible. DemonShip is coming (not soon enough) and we're going to start with Violent Dark

I backed this project through the BSS Backroom program which is a sorta-kickstarter program. I backed the second highest tier as I didn't think I needed the mdf terrain. At adepticon last year I picked up most of the other releases I didn't have. Here's the haul

Violent Dark is a co-op and solo focused space thriller in the vein of aliens. You control 4 crew members, theres missions, its got fun looking rules that I'll cover once the game's hit the table. 

Aparently I got as far as assembling the core set and getting paint on two pieces. It looks like I printed the bases for most of the crew but as the FDM printer is currently down, I've got a back up plan for the rest. 

The aliens we're a very slight disapointment. Mostly, I wish they fit on the bases provided. The resin is a touch spindly and bendy and they just don't sit nice on the slightly too small bases. I'm not sure how I'm going to paint these yet. You do get a ton of bits for them which is neat.

As a part of the initial buy in, and available later, there are a few expansion type pieces. One of these is rogue synths which adds a new type of threat. 

There was also a vac-suit and xenos hugger type of expansion

The xenos one comes with new rules for the threat. These are almost definitely my favorite sculpts in the set.

These expansions came packaged in the same bags as the bonus minis. The bonus minis were a few more crew, some turret guns and this cat.

After digging everything out I got most of everything built save for a couple aliens and the turrets. I also opted to leave the synths in the box for now. The plan is to get this on the table soon so we're going to start with an alien and two more crew as a minimum. 

Will report back soon

Deadzone (1) - Mazon Labs Starter

 I picked these up at Adepticon 2023. I actually got home from the show on Sunday, unpacked the car, and primed them. I wanted to crack these out as quick as possible so the majority of the heavy lifting is contrast paint. This project ended up taking about a week all told. I thought I'd end up finishing them on Monday but ended up not picking up a brush for most of the day and opted to just chip away on these throughout the week. We're just going to need to deal with some god awful photos for a while as well folks. The lighting in this area is just not good for this but I'd really like to continue blogging.

  I don't have a ton of love for these figures. They were all one piece castings except for the leader who was 3 resin pieces. As mentioned I let the contrast do the lifting and wanted to crack them out pretty quick. We also managed to get a game in where they lost pretty harshly. I'd like to get a few more games in before I move over to veer-myn as a more permanent home. Still, a nice quick project to kick off some painting mojo. While working on these I chipped away on a bunch of other stuff putting either finishing touches or dents in other projects so it was nice to be at the desk this much. In no particular order are some shots from the game (I lost 12-0) and some "close ups" (I know they're bad). I'll plan on taking a few nicer photo booth photos when I finish more figures for the faction down the road but for now its progress

As an aside, This is another goal on the list 

 Play Deadzone

 

On to the next project